A common theme with this blog post that seems more obvious now is that they keep referencing “their data shows this and that” instead of just listening to players and considering their feedback. Non-disbanding lobbies, map voting and connection focused MM and then team balancing once the lobby is formed used to be the key to COD’s success, and hopefully they will eventually realize that before it’s too late.
Considering the meth heads the game expects me to keep up with, I'd be doing alot of lobby shopping... lol. I usually hate the repeat players I get when I play MW2019 nowadays that the player pool is small enough to actually see repeat players....
They are highlighting the data because the reality is those that are making all of the noise represent a very small portion of the overall population. This really should be viewed as a net positive thing… The alternative would essentially be a game that bows to the view points of pro players and content creators. Which would not be beneficial for the majority of the people playing the game.
Every FPS game talks about "The data" and its like... Thats the problem. The data shouldn't be telling me "Okay, its time to win now" or "It's time to lose now". Players are being manipulated by a company who doesn't want the players to have fun, but for them to spend money.
@TheDSSlayer I didn't back down on this at all and why would there be legal action against me? I shared the limited data I collected, ensured I made it clear that it was limited and that I plan to do more detailed testing once I get a free weekend.
It was such a good laugh. I started crying and giggling the first part. I have a Netduma and make sure it only lets me connect to servers 30ms & below. Lo & behold, turn it off it starts bringing me further away from the west coast. It's interesting because it goes to texas, east coast, and eventually UK. Once in a while I get stuck in 200ms latency and I can't lose it until I restart my game. They are definitely doing things behind the scenes.
As someone who lives within driving distance of a data center and has gotten 5-8 ms ping before, I can tell you. It's not king. Every time I get 50-70 ms ping, I know they purposefully didn't connect me to the best data center. It happens ALL THE TIME.
The “when it’s your turn to lose, you’re going to lose” statement really hit hard. I can remember MW19 lobbies where the other team just seemed stacked and thinking “how did these teams get formed?” Course it all made sense once SBMM became more understood
That literally means the matches are fixed. As Ace is reading that part, he's describing EOMM perfectly. The games are rigged to keep you playing. You will win when you need to win and you will lose when you need to lose..your participation is merely a mirage lol
I wish they would have addressed one of the bigger issues which is playing with friends of differing skill levels. Bad friends don’t want to play with good friends with this system and ruins the social aspect of call of duty
My biggest problem with the SBMM has to do with who it matches to my team. The SBMM really expects me to carry teammates that don't capture or defend Dom flags and have a negative KDR, meanwhile I'm fighting against 6 of me.
Good to hear I’m not alone in this experience. I play with my dad most of the time and he’s not the best but also not a bot by any means. It’s double frustrating getting put against at least 2 of myself on the enemy team and, meanwhile, what should be the mirror matchup for my dad on the enemy team is clearly much more skilled than he. It just all results in these unsatisfying wonky games that yoyo back and forth between the aforementioned balance or games that I absolutely crush and the rest of my party basically doesn’t get to experience the game.
@@kolby9027 yeah, none of my buddies like to play with me since they get crushed in my lobbies. One of them will be going ~30-10 in his skill level but in mine, he's lucky if he can get 5 kills. I wish COD would consistently have a cage match mode to decompress from playing against teams.
I've dropped anything past 2019 for this specific Reason. Even then, my experiences wasn't that I'm required to carry, just that it has crap SBMM and team balancing, but I also got to be on the op teams as well unlike MW22.
I’m not alone! Seriously, my W/L is a fair bit higher than my K/D because I play almost exclusively Dom, with some Hardpoint and HQ thrown in. When the enemy team are evenly capping flags but you’re the only on your team capping flags, it’s not very fun.
They could have 20 factors for SBMM, and if ping gets 10% weight while no other factor gets to 10%, then it would be true that ping is the most heavily weighted factor. But it only counts for 10% of the experience. Activision's statement had to be approved by Marketing, Legal, and senior management to be as positive-sounding as possible. Then, if they split skill into multiple factors like movement, shooting, accuracy, etc., these combined factors could have a higher weight than ping, but because they spit skill into several factors, they can get away with their ping claim.
I mean, the ping system is at best no worse than in a ranked mode. If you’re consistently getting awful pings, it likely has far more to do with time of day, location, and game mode popularity than their system. The extreme focus on ping in these comments feels so odd to be honest. Bad ping has never been the issue with this matchmaking system. Having a good ping won’t somehow alleviate the dynamic skill matchmaking system that is the core issue with matches feeling uneven and frustrating.
"Skill" in cod is just a metric for recent performance. It is your KDR and W/L for your last 10-20 matches. (Not sure exactly how many because we can't see the netcode).
Team balance is a huge problem. I'll go double or triple positive, yet every other teammate of mine is going like 5 and 30. And there's nothing I can do about it
Nothing more annoying lol, went 31 and 5 on scrapyard earlier today and the rest of the team had 5-8 kills with 15-25 deaths even those I was pinging and giving call outs for em smdh🤦
Yeah, it's ultimately why I became fed up with it. 19 was tolerable, but 22 was just hell and 23 seems to be more of the same on top of having awful sound and visual design so I'm just done with it at this point and have resigned to be the old man yelling at the sky...
It's in Activisions patent for sbmm that they will add NPC's into games to sway the score so matches will last longer and the score will be closer on both teams, the NPC's will look and play like real people, have bundles, and even type in chat, and none of this is my opinion, this is all in the patent, along with them tracking biometrics and a lot of other data that all gets factored into the sbmm.
This is why I play free for or shipment/rust 24/7 (without caring about winning). The team is worthless and your enemies are all using CDL plat/250 skins lmao
Ping is king but you knowingly put me into 120ms lobbies and I get 500mbps down and I'm only average at the game. Terrible gaming experience, jumping back on Palworld ✌️
Another point worth considering with regards to SBMM. I started playing COD in 2008. Back in those days, with regards to SBMM, it was present but the experience was far better...and THAT was what got me hooked to this franchise. Not only did we have persistent lobbies and eventually map voting, but there was such a large mix of skill levels in each lobby. You'd have some players on both teams of low, medium, and high skill. That's how I learned to get better...playing against a MIX of players, not just one type. While yes backing out of a game does happen, it was rare. Those other high skill players on the opposing team, you're able to learn from and develop. And you can also compare yourself to the general population over time and see those improvements organically and also reap the rewards (both psychologically and also things like killstreaks). If you're a high skill player and just want to relax, you can't do that anymore. And if you're not good and/or new to the game, you'll not be able to make the same improvements because you'll always be playing against your equally low skill opponents. Your learning, development, and the feeling of being rewarded are all blunted...severely. COD used to be addicting...and that feeling is long gone. Stop blunting players development, stop ruining the social experience, stop punishing players of all skill levels for doing well or improving over time. Go back to what made COD great...they had a winning formula for so long, and then just abandoned ship.
I've seen persistent complaints about these exact issues since Advanced Warfare, 4 years is generous on your part. I was curious to see their official stance on SBMM as it's implementation is the reason I quit the series during MW reboot, sad to see things either not changing or slowly getting worse
I've seen persistent complaints about these exact issues since Advanced Warfare, 4 years is generous on your part. I was curious to see their official stance on SBMM as it's implementation is the reason I quit the series during MW reboot, sad to see things either not changing or slowly getting worse
Really wished they would’ve addressed the lobbies when playing in a party with different skilled friends. Haven’t played MP with certain friends cause of that
During CW I would play with my brother who’s in his 30s, and my dad who’s mid-60s… we would have a great first couple games but then the sbmm would be crazy. At the time I played quiet frequently, and was definitely better than my brother and dad… it turned us off of playing cod as a whole. Halo is a little better, but modern match making in general is nothing like it once was
Have you tried changing who’s party leader? In my squad we’ve got kd’s between 0.5 and 2.5 and the lobbies are definitely harder or easier depending on who’s searching.
It’s interesting to hear those experiences because I get the exact opposite. I’m a much better player that the friends I play with, however most of the time we get into “their” lobbies instead of “mine”. Since Black Ops Cold War this has happened (due to COVID stay at home orders we were all at a high skill level during MW2019 life cycle) by just letting them instead of me search for lobbies. This has been consistent in both Warzone and Multiplayer, with the sole exception of Search and Destroy mode, mainly because that mode is only populated by sweats
Ping is absolutely all that should matter. The games objectively went to shit ever since they started preventing organic matchmaking. It's a self created issue.
@@skcansMachine false. My friend who's really good at CoD was stuck for 5 minutes waiting for a match. He has really good internet so there's no reason for it to take so long. Backing out or restarting the game doesn't fix it and he isn't shadowbanned either. Skill 100% takes priority otherwise he wouldn't be stuck for 5 minutes looking for a match. It's trying to find people at his level. And because the better someone is, the less people there will be on the general pool that the game is able to find at their skill and thus artificially increasing your queue times.
@@Swagceus 1 anomaly doesn't make it untrue. I've never once had a match take longer than a minute to queue and I've played everything from solos to quads. If you tune into any high level streamer, you'll see that they never take long finding matches either. If skill takes priority over ping, then we'd see all these streamers run into long queues every now and then but that never happens
I feel like they made the diagram for people to misinterpret easily. Ping feels like 1 out of the 8 factors affecting your matchmaking experience rather than the top preference. Even during my good matches, I know anyone I win a ginfight against is probably experiencing the same connection and server inconsistencies I'll be in the next few matches.
Literally, and in a lobby where i get stomped, i always think to myself “damn that players next game is gonna be awful” about the best player in the lobby
Facts. Or you get a really good game, but you can’t even enjoy it because you know the algorithm is either trying to reward you for getting stomped earlier or trying to punish the other team for stomping a team earlier. It’s like your performance in the game is planned before you even load in.
I’ve experienced more packet loss, stuttering, and overall poor connection quality in modern cod games than any old games combined. With a growing playerbase that should NOT be the case. On top of that lobby matchmaking times are longer than they’ve ever been. There are just so many holes in their statement, it’s as if they think everyone is a mindless idiot who will believe whatever they say even though it directly contradicts the experiences we’ve had for YEARS.
You must not remember MW2 (the original). The game would literally stop, and trying to find a new host, in the middle of the match, if the net code didn't like anybody, the match would just end.
@@Real_Beakyyea I think there's definitely a bit of a rose tinted glasses phenomenon when people are remembering the old cods matchmaking. Not to say it's not all invalid, but it's questionable to say the least
Packet loss and lag have nothing to do with SBMM. Ping is something completely different. If you’re experiencing lag or packet loss you have a connection issue
The entire blog provided zero value or information for me. Just PR speak. Fact is, I can play for hours in the various limited-time and "fun" modes and they are CLEARLY, OBJECTIVELY completely different from the regular playlist. I don't get nukes, I'm still about average but I simply don't see the lobbies where apparent CDL pros slide in and kill me 2 sec after respawn over and over and over - which happens half the matches in the regular playlist. I actually HAVE FUN, which leads me to believe removing SBMM would improve the damn game. They said why it's there - so players don't get frustrated and quit. Except it's doing the opposite.
If you're commenting on a video about cod on the internet, you aren't amongst the ultra majority that this system helps. They would be completely okay losing you and I as players because the system benefits the ultra majority of players (well over 90%) that are some of the absolute worst players you've ever seen. Unfortunately we think we matter because we see other people online with similar opinions, but the overwhelming majority of players never even engages with the game outside of turning their console on and booting up the game, while players like us engage with the game in other ways.
@@zeroshadowzs Not sure about that 90% or if they are being helped in any way (doubt it), but from my experience I consistently get opponents OF MY OWN SKILL LEVEL in various LTM/ fun modes where SBMM is tuned way down (same applies to non-core modes in Warzone). This happens only RARELY in regular MP. I seriously doubt me actually having fun vs a balanced competition would cause 90% of the playerbase to quit or even suffer in any way.
@starlite_lord4321 ltms and non core modes are not where the majority of players play. Your results when you play apart from the main group of players are always going to be somewhat different. It's definitely at least 90% because I'm in the top 5% of players with barely a 1.5 kd. Hell, you yourself might be in the top 5% also. Me being in the top 5% would lead me to believe 95% are trash but I lowballed it because it makes my point stronger, and that is that the system keeps the ultra majority playing longer and that ultra majority is about 90% of the playerbase.
@@zeroshadowzs According to "research" there is a trash pool of around 40% of the player base, and in theory they are kept separate from anyone who can actually play this game. Your top 5% thing at 1.5 k/d is correct. But objectively SBMM increases ping even if you live inside a server center, and it also takes into account only your RECENT performance. Ace here has said a lot about how random and annoying that is, and also makes you feel your OWN skills and improvement don't matter much, your success in next game is mostly (pre) decided by the game itself. There should be a better way.
When I read that bit about “faster lobby finding” I audibly laughed out loud. I could only think about Nero’s video of him finding (and loading into) a match in every CoD b/w CoD4 and Ghosts before he got into ONE lobby in MWII (2022)
I don’t think that comment is being made to say that it is finding lobbies faster when compared to past matchmaking systems, but with regards to their current weighted matchmaking system… skill was considered far far less in older CODs and the constraints are essentially nonexistent in the older games due to the low amount of available lobbies. I mean, I can find a lobby of Ghosts super fast, but my ping is also 70+ since there’s not many available lobbies.
Majority of those are P2P connections as well, over trying to connect to a data center. Those had massive issues over Modern COD. Clearly your RUclipsr was making entertainment over education on that video.
@@DamienDarkside They did not have "massive issues" over modern CoD. P2P was not perfect, and dedicated servers offer a lot of benefits sure, but with the systems they've added in addition to dedicated servers makes for an objectively worse experience. It wasn't "entertainment" content, it was blatantly showing shortcomings of the current system.
The fact they stated people leaving matches makes matchmaking worse, and then lying about ping being king (Its the #1 reason i leave matches-terrible ping) is a massive loop of irony.
I read it and I think it was exactly what the community should've expected. My personal opinions on the blog most of the things they said were bs and they will continue to cater towards the bad player.
What parts are a lie exactly? The issue with the matchmaking is the dynamic skill ratings, the very thing that protects bad players… they acknowledge that this system exists. It’s definitely PR speak and they try to word it in ways that make seem things less impactful than they may actually be, but I’m not sure what y’all think they’re just actively being dishonest about…
17:00 - this is something that is the biggest head scratcher to me... we all know those games where you know that matchmaking has decided you will lose, so what exactly is the reason I don't just back out of that game? If the options are waste 15 min and lose or waste no min and lose which are you going to choose? It's so short-sighted and horrible UX
Generally because in my experience quitting the match doesn't remove your status as "marked to lose". Next match you join will still have you lose it, you quit again and again but it won't go away until you actually lose.
I believe they should stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Let us simply pick what modes we want to play without removing them and replacing them. If I want to run shipment 24/7 let me do that. I should be able to pick from a list of modes within multiplayer and decide what I want to play versus being forced to play whatever is available
Ping is king thats why EU players match with US east coast all the time, basically if you have half a brain and working thumbs this game will do anything to screw you over.
I actually live within a few miles of a data center and have seen ping as low as like 9 ms. But I have noticed that this ping can go up to 50-60 ms sometimes and those lobbies tend to be sweatier. The difference when you go from basically as low as ping can be to 60 ms is noticeable. As much as I'd like to believe that ping is king, my ping should never be higher than ~10-15 ms. Would be curious if other people who live really close to data centers have had the same experience. Because when you live that close, any server that's not the one right next to you is immediately noticeable.
I have the opposite problem where I live in Hawaii so the closest data center is at minimum 50-70 ping. But I notice that after a few matches the game will always throw me into 100-115 ms ping, eventually self-correct back to lower ping, rinse and repeat.
I usually have 12 to 20 ping, but after one good game at that ping I get sent into 60 ping matches and then 80 ping matches and you can really feel the time to die decrease.
One thing also is the balance in the swings: When you play well, you get to the hard lobbies for many games and when you have suffered for long enough, then you get 1 or 2 good lobbies. So it's much quicker to jump to the sweaty lobbies than it is to get back from there
I think one thing they indirectly pointed out with this is that players that don’t play the objective will have a better perceived experience because they game will make it easier for them to win after consecutive losses. So if you want to enjoy the game more, play for K/D only and not to win
@elg7365 if you play objective and get kills while on objective your spm will be higher than just some guy going for kills. Spm and w/l mean the most for sbmm. K/d really doesn't matter at all.
@@elg7365 idk man, have you seen Nero’s cinema where played with a squad of 4 and they win like 8 games in a row? They eventually put them on a French server with 200ms ping and they still won that match, so the next match they didn’t even give them any teammates from the start of the match to the end of the match and they finally lost
@@keiskay no it doesn't for sure. Movement accuracy and kills. Spm means nothing cause it doesn't depict you individual skill but your dedication to wins. Wins they don't care. They care about individual performance.
Absolutely insane they blame us for the Rustment point. They have the data that people prefer Shipment and it is actively harming the playlist. Then.why.dont.you.separate.the.playlist. Or have persistent lobbies as Ace said. And you can also replace “player experience” with “Activision’s pockets.”
@@trashaimgamer7822How is he to blame? He's just a part of the majority of people. Personally I prefer Rust. They should simply be separate he's right.
Now I'm wondering how big a factor the playlist selection is, because I exclusively stuck to Domination and Hardpoint and had to straight up stop playing the game. Worst matchmaking experience I've ever had in CoD.
In what way do you perceive this impacting your experience? I would be shocked if it was super heavily weighted and am not sure why it would make such a terrible impact anyway. The largest factor beyond ping is the skill ratings.
What modes you play shouldn't effect sbmm at all, that's dumb, and does nothing for anyone. Same with voice chat. Wtf does that have to do with anything? The complaints all these years have fuk all to do with "stomping noobs'. It's fukn connection quality. Always. Cod is literally the only game that I CONSISTENTLY get 100ms+ ping...why!?!? I can play any cod before mw19 and have less than 20ms ping at all times. I can play literally any modern mp game, and constantly get around 20ms ping. In every cod AFTER blops 4, my ping has been atrocious. I have never had better internet. Fibre. Main city. Hardwired. How the fuk can you justify 100+ms ping when we have dedicated servers. Everyone defending this shit have a lower IQ than the number of fingers they have, not sorry, your dumb. Period
13:06 - SBMM - when finding enemies and team mates - I’ve got a 2.85 KDR in multiplayer and I’ve noticed this when I play solo, if the entire lobby is a bunch of solo players, it will have what is essentially a (2+4)vs(2+4) , where’s its 2 highly skilled team mates and 4 atrocious team mates (who seem exponentially worse in terms of skill) , versus 2 highly skilled enemies and 4 atrocious enemies. Just some anecdotal experience that I’ve noticed almost invariably every match….
@@xxPhoenixX-sg9trNah, they’re not outright lying in this post, but that doesn’t mean they’re being 100% transparent and truthful either. How things are worded are super important so as to not completely purged themselves. Very common PR language
I think a good option for an "skill-matchless" mode would be something similar to gunfight or a party-mode that bridges the gap between pure party mode and regular multiplayer. A mode where the variety of players is let loose but also gives people randomized loadouts for the match. Maybe even give people a selection of 3 randomized loadouts in the loadout screen so they aren't just stuck to one for the whole match. Would feel like playing a regular match since it's not round-based and there's some consistency in which loadout you choose to use but it would be really fun for people that are tired of the strictness of matchmaking or even the strictness of the meta without losing all player customization. If they really wanted to go further they could allow you to edit specific parts of the loadout but leave everything else locked, like allowing players to change the field upgrade and keep their equipped killstreaks but that's it. I'd honestly play the hell out of a mode like this because I don't like pure random or pure party modes where it gets very stale very quickly without player choice and the meta really bothers me sometimes.
the only way "ping is king" is if Activision willingly admits that their servers suck, because I average about 50-100ms of ping with good internet, if that really is the best ping the game can find, then their servers are terrible
This is the most well-made and level-headed response video I've seen so far to this blog post. You brought up some great points that I hadn't even considered, and found myself agreeing with just about everything you said. Seeing this blog post pretty much confirmed what I was already thinking about the matchmaking system, and I firmly believe that nothing is going to change. Apparently their data seems to suggest that the current matchmaking is somehow good for them, but it definitely isn't good for the vast majority of the vocal community. Unless I'm proven wrong and they actually make significant enough changes to improve the experience, I'm done with COD. I've put up with this for 5 years, and seeing this blog post combined with the recent layoffs has simply evaporated what little hope I had left for the franchise to improve in the future. I simply don't see anything pointing towards things improving from here on out, and there are simply more enjoyable games to play and ways to spend my free time than playing a game that feels more like a job. Still, I'm going to continue to keep up with any big news regarding COD, if just for entertainment at seeing how much worse things get, and I'll continue to support Ace, who I still think is one of the best COD content creators out there.
The delta ping thing explains the skill based hit detection. I get a 2-4ms lobbies in my area most of the time but the hit detection is way different game to game. It seems when I'm being punished in sweat lobbies I'm also put in lobbies where lag compensation is at the highest, favoring the players with ping closer to the average/delta.
Even as far back as CoD4, there was always a protected bracket for the lowest of low skill players. So technically, there was SBMM in the previous games, just not in the very strict form it has been since MW2019 and on. It's one of those "technically correct but also leaving out information and not explaining the full situation" kind of statements that this blog seemed to have quite a few of.
Some form of skill incorporated into the matchmaking system has certainly been around since COD 4, but that system is totally different than what we consider to be SBMM today. Also, what dev specifically? I see a lot of fake devs popping up on reddit and twitter and none of them have actually been devs.
yeah i can still remember when the big tobacco corps got up in front of a federal inquiry and all said under oath that the believe nicotine isn't addictive.
They say that how much you play is not factored in, but it's obvious to me that how much you've played (or not played) *recently* does affect how they calculate your recent performance. If I take a week or more off the game my first games back on are very easy, then naturally my performance puts me into more closely matched (or stacked against me) lobbies.
1) this matchmaking system was live well before mw19. I started to feel it in AW when everyone on the enemy team had 3 bars and an obsidian steed or a speakeasy when you was in the game you was meant to lose. It's also when Condrey spouted "Ping is King" seems like an Activision tag line. 2)whilst they say they don't manipulate in game mechanics such as hit reg the fact that ping is manipulated indirectly effects the hit reg. The whole post was a nothing post. Especially without the data.
If there isn't AI in thegame then they are putting me against really bad players after long losing streaks because I'll drop 40 plus kills for a few games and that's not normal for me. It feels like actual bots.
@@cache780 They aren't bots, it isn't hard to imagine that players really do suck that badly or are literally disabled. It would take being REALLY REALLY bad consistently (like reverse boosting levels of bad) to get into those kinds of lobbies tho.
In 5 out of 10 matches I literally get PC players and “other console” players and I have crossplay turned off. When I try to check their profiles, they’re non-existent , and everything is locked so I’m unable to even send a whisper or message. If those aren’t bots I don’t know what is. I’ve sent multiple messages to activision support showing evidence and they don’t even acknowledge it. They simply ignore it or say, “oh, we will send this to the higher ups!” (They’ve been saying that for 6 months now)
What I think should be SBMM is this: Each player has a skill rating 1-100 (for the sake of this description. When searching, a lobby chooses random players who are all within 10 rating of each other. This means, when you find a game you could be with players +/-10 rating, depending on the random lobby that has gathered the players. This means that you will be one of the more skilled, less skilled, or something in the middle each game. With the pool of players, the lobby splits the players so that the average skill ratings are as close as possible for each team The skill rating would be based over a longer time period, say 20 games or so, so that there is not a feeling of punishment for playing well, rather just a gradual improvement over time
What I got out of this blog is that they're not utilizing their focus correctly. For one they don't seem to put enough parity between the components to their matchmaking, and as a result it ends up giving everybody really weird matches every single time. Another big problem is the fact that they seem to be too scared of losing player retention, but this wouldn't be happening if they just made it so the lobbies stay open and people would be allowed to stay in the lobby after the match is over just like the old days. COD was at its best when you could forge friendships through enjoyable social interaction combined with a fun gaming experience, and as time has gone on they've gone in the opposite direction and now nobody is happy except a very specific part of the audience.
My experience with this game vs what they're saying: 1. Honestly, my ping is usually pretty good. I don't normally have a ping above 40. 2. It doesn't feel like the game prioritizes different maps in my experience. The other day, I got 3 lobbies back to back playing Skidrow. 3. This may just be a SnD thing, but my group all play with a controller on xbox and we are constantly seeing kbam players in our lobbies. Edit: I wanna clarify that it has been like this since MW19 4. The skill disparity comment is complete and utter garbage. When I'm playing respawn modes, about 1/4 games, I'll have teammates who go 5-25, I'll be barely positive, and the enemy team are all playing like they're trying to win a championship.
My experience is the when playing with a party of at least 4 , helps a lot. We definitely see the game fill lower skill players on the higher win streaks
I’m a patent attorney. You’re absolutely right that a description of an embodiment of a claimed invention in a patent (e.g. skill based change in game elements) is not evidence that it has ever been made, used, or commercialized or will ever be made, used, or commercialized. However, you did imply that a patent that has gone abandoned would mean that use of claimed invention would suddenly cease. That’s not correct. A patent only give the holder a right to exclude others from selling the claimed invention. It does not give the holder a right to use the invention or mean that when the patent expires or goes abandoned that they can no longer use the invention. It would basically have no effect on their ability to use the invention.
I appreciate you chiming in on this topic. You're right, I didn't word that as well as I should have as I am fully aware that an expired patent doesn't exclude you from using it. I was trying not to get too derailed and long winded with the topic and rushed my point a bit. In your experience, is it common for a large company to abandon a patent that they're actively using in one of their current products? Perhaps I'm wrong on this but to me this leads me to believe that it's far more likely (but not impossible) that they aren't using it than the alternative.
@@TheXclusiveAceabsolutely. They would never let a patent expire that covered a technology that was actively being commercialized. The fees required to keep a patent active are pennies to them. You nailed the analysis generally. Patents can be a good signpost or clue about where a company is headed but are certainly not a guarantee that they are using the patented technology without other evidence.
You are so better at taking reviews of others. So many youtubers would just yell thinking its cool to do it. Thank god i followed you and thank god you finally covered it
I couldn’t agree with you more. BO2 they introduced SBMM. And in 201 9 it went from casual to rank mode on pubs and this years COD is like everyone is playing like their on COD league.
SBMM was fine until they added disbanding lobbies and eventually the AI chat moderation. I can care less if the new, bad, or disabled players aren't playing against me but when I can't make new friends or chat casually with other players, thats when it becomes a problem.
Advanced warfare SBMM is significantly heavier than anything else in its era and then picks up heavily again in MW2019 and stays heavy until the current era where we are now
It's weird that back in the 2009 MW2 days, there was no SBMM but rarely did I see large amounts of players people back out mid match. This was even after getting dumped on by chopper gunners etc. Could it be that player attitudes have changed and necessitate SBMM?
Learning how to get open nat rather than moderate on pc has transformed my gameplay. Having open nat resulted in lower ping and much quicker matchmaking which has definitely been more enjoyable. P.s. I am just another nut that loves playing mostly hardcore shipment or the smaller maps (mainly for camo grinding & overall gameplay enjoyment).
Won’t change much since only the high skill players are going to play in the ping playlist. Most people do not have significant ping issues in the game, and if you consistently have ping issues, it’s more than likely just your connection. Make sure to set your proper DNS server in your console settings and configure your router properly as those are usually the cause to consistently bad ping.
Fact is that COD has many millions of a user base. The people and influencers that don't like SBMM are the vocal minority. Period. I hate when people say "the player base doesn't like XYZ .."... No.... YOU don't. Don't speak for everyone. Activision has metrics galore and they know better than anyone if it works to keep engagement or not .. if it grows the base or not. The fa t they are keeping means it works. Period. It's common f'ing sense. For every conceited ass that plays 40 hours a week and gets their rocks off by curb stomping new players, there is 10 times more people that don't want to get stomped. They play here and there after work to relieve stress .. to have fun with buds... And feel like "man even though in not great at this game, that was a close match"! That is what keeps the player base healthy... And people coming back. Cause the "hardcore" players despite their bullshit threats of they won't play cause of it, WILL keep playing. But the casual player who isnt having fun cause they keep getting bashed, will leave and won't come back.
Couldn’t agree more about the mixed skill level parties. I have some friends that we played together all the time and we don’t anymore because someone is getting smoked and not having any fun.
1:02 no we dont expect connection quality to be everything, just a big part of it. The biggest issue is that if you do good in a few games, the sbmm changes the game from being mostly good-connection lobbies to mostly low ping lobbies
Mixed bag this. On one hand we got official confirmation on what we already know... on another, what is this data we speak of? Low K/D players? High W/L players? To have the discussion finally is nice but it really doesn't indicate any changes coming.
i really miss the days of finding like, a solid lobby, and sticking with it for hours. not one i stomped in, not one where i was getting blown out, but a lobby where it just 'felt' good to play in. ive never, ever felt that even once in all the games post mw19
The COD community truly doesn't deserve a creator as level-headed and rational as you, X. I particularly liked what you said about the devs blaming players for backing out of Black Gold etc. That's 100% a game-design problem (not to mention a map-design problem).
I think a big point that's being missed across the board is the packet loss. It's a huge issue since vanguard, and that's because of skill-based matchmaking. Call of duty the only game I get packet loss on it causes stutters delays clunky gameplay.
Since the article dropped I've been getting the hardest lobbies I've ever gotten in my 10+ years of playing COD. Went 44-5 in one match and since then I couldn't break 10 kills. My last 10 matches were all losses as well.
Ace, you are a Legend! Appreciate all the work into CoD and trying to help us out. You were the first RUclips Cod Gamer I subscribed to b/c you teach and provide invites for a better experience. You've helped me alot and ❤ to you for that. PERSISTENT LOBBYS are needed to get us back to GOOD COD!
One thing I miss in the matchmaking lobby is the former party bracket indicators they used to have - that is, it used to be clearly indicated that players 1,2,3,4 were members of the same party. This helped me know what I was up against as a player, if say, most of my whole team are lone wolf players pitted against a known party of a 4 or 5 coordinated team. Not sure how SBMM handles that on its invisible priority list.
I personally think a lot of their blog post fails under scrutiny. Specifically, the one about how they saw a noticeable difference in player retention on their “no sbmm weekends”. I struggle to believe that removing a tertiary matchmaking criteria (literally their words) created a noticeable difference. And, if it truly did, I struggle to believe it’s actually a tertiary criteria. I’m not into any of the TikTok spammed conspiracies but I’m not sure how much of this I’m taking at face value.
Hey Ace, always appreciate your level headed, academic approach to these topics. So exhausted of arguing with people who have no evidence for a claim. There is plenty of issues with COD that are already confirmed, we don’t need to go into conspiracy theories. We have enough issues to fix right at our feet.
that "it's my turn to win" and "it's my turn to lose" is exactly the sentiment my friend group began to feel in this iteration of the game. It's gotten so bad that the less-skilled players in our group no longer want to play with the more-skilled players. The best player in our group straight up quit playing the game over this feeling of absolutely helplessness in the matches where the outcome seems completely pre-determined which is a damn shame.
On the topic of the Rust/Shipment issue, I'd love to have the ability to filter which maps I can matchmake into just like how I can filter game modes in quickplay. There are a few maps I'd just rather not play.
This blog is just entirely lies. Ping is used to handicap good players. In MW ‘19 & MIIW I would play my first 2-3 matches on my local server. I would almost always be the top scorer for those 2-3 matches. After that, the matchmaking would geofence me about 2,000 miles away from my location. This usually only added about 20ms ping according the my NetDuma. However the ping spikes and tick rate were terrible to the point where I would die from people who hadn’t even appeared on my screen yet. I really like the changes they’ve made towards game mechanics in MW3, but they’ve clearly continued doubling down on this weird EOMM handicap system so I still haven’t bought it. The other weird thing is literally the last match I played of MW2, I hadn’t played in months. It was the best connection I had had in years. Afterwords, a survey I had never seen popped up asking if I enjoyed the match. It was so creepy and weird.
As a hardcore fan of COD I 1000% believe what we have going on with SBMM is exactly what the game is needing, only way I can prove it is my friends that just casually play COD I know 13 people that aren't as invested in COD as me and they have enjoyed COD so much more because they no longer run into people like me with 1.2 - 2.0 kds in CODs.
"Spending money doesnt effect matchmaking" does not equal "spending money doesnt effect the gameplay". I think its more likely to be noticed in warzone and zombies, badically amounting to better drops They took a while to write this and every word has its purpose. You pointed it out a little, some of the wording is curious and gives them a lot of leeway. That's not a mistake
I think the biggest problem, which you also mentioned, is being punished for playing better than usual. Just because I play better than average in a few rounds does not mean I’m ready for CDL level lobbies, but it feels like that’s where SBMM puts me.
I have over 300 hours in zombies alone so to here 'Ping is king' while having footage showing 130-190+ ping lobbies and almost 250GB of footage alone I immediately recognise they started this entire blog post with a easily disprovable statement and therfore I simply don't believe anything they say. If they won't communicate with the community in good faith then what is even the point of the post? This only makes things worse
A common theme with this blog post that seems more obvious now is that they keep referencing “their data shows this and that” instead of just listening to players and considering their feedback. Non-disbanding lobbies, map voting and connection focused MM and then team balancing once the lobby is formed used to be the key to COD’s success, and hopefully they will eventually realize that before it’s too late.
Considering the meth heads the game expects me to keep up with, I'd be doing alot of lobby shopping... lol. I usually hate the repeat players I get when I play MW2019 nowadays that the player pool is small enough to actually see repeat players....
They are highlighting the data because the reality is those that are making all of the noise represent a very small portion of the overall population.
This really should be viewed as a net positive thing… The alternative would essentially be a game that bows to the view points of pro players and content creators. Which would not be beneficial for the majority of the people playing the game.
Every FPS game talks about "The data" and its like... Thats the problem. The data shouldn't be telling me "Okay, its time to win now" or "It's time to lose now". Players are being manipulated by a company who doesn't want the players to have fun, but for them to spend money.
Following "the data" has ruined the gaming industry.
Merk always spittin fax
Jev summed it up perfectly.
"Ping is not king, it's one of eight princes"
legendary quote
Not even, it’s more like the local aristocrat.
im disappointed Ace has seems to back down on his 2019 and cold war SBMM takes about ping. almost like he is scared of some sort of legal action
@TheDSSlayer I didn't back down on this at all and why would there be legal action against me? I shared the limited data I collected, ensured I made it clear that it was limited and that I plan to do more detailed testing once I get a free weekend.
@@TheDSSlayer Small brain L take
ping is king in this matchmaking is the biggest lie i've heard this year
Ping is peasant more like.
Amen. They lost me at bulletin number 1. on that blog post. LMAO
It was such a good laugh. I started crying and giggling the first part. I have a Netduma and make sure it only lets me connect to servers 30ms & below. Lo & behold, turn it off it starts bringing me further away from the west coast. It's interesting because it goes to texas, east coast, and eventually UK. Once in a while I get stuck in 200ms latency and I can't lose it until I restart my game. They are definitely doing things behind the scenes.
Ping is king for whoever having their good match of the day lol
As someone who lives within driving distance of a data center and has gotten 5-8 ms ping before, I can tell you. It's not king. Every time I get 50-70 ms ping, I know they purposefully didn't connect me to the best data center. It happens ALL THE TIME.
The “when it’s your turn to lose, you’re going to lose” statement really hit hard. I can remember MW19 lobbies where the other team just seemed stacked and thinking “how did these teams get formed?” Course it all made sense once SBMM became more understood
That literally means the matches are fixed. As Ace is reading that part, he's describing EOMM perfectly. The games are rigged to keep you playing. You will win when you need to win and you will lose when you need to lose..your participation is merely a mirage lol
I wish they would have addressed one of the bigger issues which is playing with friends of differing skill levels. Bad friends don’t want to play with good friends with this system and ruins the social aspect of call of duty
The good friend needs to session join the bad friend and then it will be fine.
@@2006GTOit works for like 1-2 games at most
@@2006GTOthat only works if the good friend joins after the bad friend finds a lobby, and then it only works for one match
@chandlerjones2756 well that was a lie
@@PigSticker-wm2tq This is exactly how you reverse boost bro. lol
My biggest problem with the SBMM has to do with who it matches to my team. The SBMM really expects me to carry teammates that don't capture or defend Dom flags and have a negative KDR, meanwhile I'm fighting against 6 of me.
Good to hear I’m not alone in this experience. I play with my dad most of the time and he’s not the best but also not a bot by any means. It’s double frustrating getting put against at least 2 of myself on the enemy team and, meanwhile, what should be the mirror matchup for my dad on the enemy team is clearly much more skilled than he. It just all results in these unsatisfying wonky games that yoyo back and forth between the aforementioned balance or games that I absolutely crush and the rest of my party basically doesn’t get to experience the game.
@@kolby9027 yeah, none of my buddies like to play with me since they get crushed in my lobbies. One of them will be going ~30-10 in his skill level but in mine, he's lucky if he can get 5 kills. I wish COD would consistently have a cage match mode to decompress from playing against teams.
I've dropped anything past 2019 for this specific Reason. Even then, my experiences wasn't that I'm required to carry, just that it has crap SBMM and team balancing, but I also got to be on the op teams as well unlike MW22.
Its sbmm/eomm
I’m not alone! Seriously, my W/L is a fair bit higher than my K/D because I play almost exclusively Dom, with some Hardpoint and HQ thrown in. When the enemy team are evenly capping flags but you’re the only on your team capping flags, it’s not very fun.
They could have 20 factors for SBMM, and if ping gets 10% weight while no other factor gets to 10%, then it would be true that ping is the most heavily weighted factor. But it only counts for 10% of the experience. Activision's statement had to be approved by Marketing, Legal, and senior management to be as positive-sounding as possible. Then, if they split skill into multiple factors like movement, shooting, accuracy, etc., these combined factors could have a higher weight than ping, but because they spit skill into several factors, they can get away with their ping claim.
I mean, the ping system is at best no worse than in a ranked mode. If you’re consistently getting awful pings, it likely has far more to do with time of day, location, and game mode popularity than their system. The extreme focus on ping in these comments feels so odd to be honest. Bad ping has never been the issue with this matchmaking system. Having a good ping won’t somehow alleviate the dynamic skill matchmaking system that is the core issue with matches feeling uneven and frustrating.
"Skill" in cod is just a metric for recent performance. It is your KDR and W/L for your last 10-20 matches. (Not sure exactly how many because we can't see the netcode).
Good point 👉
made the same point
The connection is still better in these games than it was in Bo3. The connection was horrible in that game (which was otherwise a masterpiece).
Team balance is a huge problem. I'll go double or triple positive, yet every other teammate of mine is going like 5 and 30. And there's nothing I can do about it
Nothing more annoying lol, went 31 and 5 on scrapyard earlier today and the rest of the team had 5-8 kills with 15-25 deaths even those I was pinging and giving call outs for em smdh🤦
Yeah, it's ultimately why I became fed up with it. 19 was tolerable, but 22 was just hell and 23 seems to be more of the same on top of having awful sound and visual design so I'm just done with it at this point and have resigned to be the old man yelling at the sky...
It's in Activisions patent for sbmm that they will add NPC's into games to sway the score so matches will last longer and the score will be closer on both teams, the NPC's will look and play like real people, have bundles, and even type in chat, and none of this is my opinion, this is all in the patent, along with them tracking biometrics and a lot of other data that all gets factored into the sbmm.
This is why I play free for or shipment/rust 24/7 (without caring about winning). The team is worthless and your enemies are all using CDL plat/250 skins lmao
@@scottjs5207Haha love this comment
there’s no hope anymore. The cod we knew is long gone.
It was gone after black ops 2 era 😂😊
@@TitusMHbo4 was the last tolerable cod. mw 2019 killed the game we love
Ping is king but you knowingly put me into 120ms lobbies and I get 500mbps down and I'm only average at the game. Terrible gaming experience, jumping back on Palworld ✌️
Smart pick. playing single player games helps alot with multiplayer rage.
@throatjamma it's eomm thats why
Another point worth considering with regards to SBMM. I started playing COD in 2008. Back in those days, with regards to SBMM, it was present but the experience was far better...and THAT was what got me hooked to this franchise. Not only did we have persistent lobbies and eventually map voting, but there was such a large mix of skill levels in each lobby. You'd have some players on both teams of low, medium, and high skill. That's how I learned to get better...playing against a MIX of players, not just one type. While yes backing out of a game does happen, it was rare. Those other high skill players on the opposing team, you're able to learn from and develop. And you can also compare yourself to the general population over time and see those improvements organically and also reap the rewards (both psychologically and also things like killstreaks). If you're a high skill player and just want to relax, you can't do that anymore. And if you're not good and/or new to the game, you'll not be able to make the same improvements because you'll always be playing against your equally low skill opponents. Your learning, development, and the feeling of being rewarded are all blunted...severely. COD used to be addicting...and that feeling is long gone. Stop blunting players development, stop ruining the social experience, stop punishing players of all skill levels for doing well or improving over time. Go back to what made COD great...they had a winning formula for so long, and then just abandoned ship.
back in the days where the lobby showed everyone’s score the previous game and then worked out the teams based off that laddef
such a brave blog post, restating exactly what the community has been complaining about for 4 years without any elaboration, love it!!
I've seen persistent complaints about these exact issues since Advanced Warfare, 4 years is generous on your part. I was curious to see their official stance on SBMM as it's implementation is the reason I quit the series during MW reboot, sad to see things either not changing or slowly getting worse
I've seen persistent complaints about these exact issues since Advanced Warfare, 4 years is generous on your part. I was curious to see their official stance on SBMM as it's implementation is the reason I quit the series during MW reboot, sad to see things either not changing or slowly getting worse
lol
Really wished they would’ve addressed the lobbies when playing in a party with different skilled friends. Haven’t played MP with certain friends cause of that
During CW I would play with my brother who’s in his 30s, and my dad who’s mid-60s… we would have a great first couple games but then the sbmm would be crazy. At the time I played quiet frequently, and was definitely better than my brother and dad… it turned us off of playing cod as a whole.
Halo is a little better, but modern match making in general is nothing like it once was
Have you tried changing who’s party leader? In my squad we’ve got kd’s between 0.5 and 2.5 and the lobbies are definitely harder or easier depending on who’s searching.
It’s interesting to hear those experiences because I get the exact opposite. I’m a much better player that the friends I play with, however most of the time we get into “their” lobbies instead of “mine”. Since Black Ops Cold War this has happened (due to COVID stay at home orders we were all at a high skill level during MW2019 life cycle) by just letting them instead of me search for lobbies. This has been consistent in both Warzone and Multiplayer, with the sole exception of Search and Destroy mode, mainly because that mode is only populated by sweats
The community absolutely doesn't agree ping is king
Ping is absolutely all that should matter. The games objectively went to shit ever since they started preventing organic matchmaking. It's a self created issue.
Ping is definitely their priority lol otherwise you'd be sitting in 10+ min queues and getting put into oceanic servers regularly
They're trying to gaslight us
@@skcansMachine false. My friend who's really good at CoD was stuck for 5 minutes waiting for a match. He has really good internet so there's no reason for it to take so long. Backing out or restarting the game doesn't fix it and he isn't shadowbanned either. Skill 100% takes priority otherwise he wouldn't be stuck for 5 minutes looking for a match. It's trying to find people at his level. And because the better someone is, the less people there will be on the general pool that the game is able to find at their skill and thus artificially increasing your queue times.
@@Swagceus 1 anomaly doesn't make it untrue. I've never once had a match take longer than a minute to queue and I've played everything from solos to quads. If you tune into any high level streamer, you'll see that they never take long finding matches either. If skill takes priority over ping, then we'd see all these streamers run into long queues every now and then but that never happens
I feel like they made the diagram for people to misinterpret easily. Ping feels like 1 out of the 8 factors affecting your matchmaking experience rather than the top preference. Even during my good matches, I know anyone I win a ginfight against is probably experiencing the same connection and server inconsistencies I'll be in the next few matches.
Literally, and in a lobby where i get stomped, i always think to myself “damn that players next game is gonna be awful” about the best player in the lobby
Facts. Or you get a really good game, but you can’t even enjoy it because you know the algorithm is either trying to reward you for getting stomped earlier or trying to punish the other team for stomping a team earlier. It’s like your performance in the game is planned before you even load in.
I’ve experienced more packet loss, stuttering, and overall poor connection quality in modern cod games than any old games combined. With a growing playerbase that should NOT be the case. On top of that lobby matchmaking times are longer than they’ve ever been. There are just so many holes in their statement, it’s as if they think everyone is a mindless idiot who will believe whatever they say even though it directly contradicts the experiences we’ve had for YEARS.
You must not remember MW2 (the original). The game would literally stop, and trying to find a new host, in the middle of the match, if the net code didn't like anybody, the match would just end.
@@Real_Beakyyea I think there's definitely a bit of a rose tinted glasses phenomenon when people are remembering the old cods matchmaking. Not to say it's not all invalid, but it's questionable to say the least
Packet loss and lag have nothing to do with SBMM. Ping is something completely different. If you’re experiencing lag or packet loss you have a connection issue
If you’re using WiFi and not Ethernet, start there. I use Ethernet and very, very rarely have the issues you describe.
If you’re using WiFi and not Ethernet, start there. I use Ethernet and very, very rarely have the issues you describe.
The entire blog provided zero value or information for me. Just PR speak. Fact is, I can play for hours in the various limited-time and "fun" modes and they are CLEARLY, OBJECTIVELY completely different from the regular playlist. I don't get nukes, I'm still about average but I simply don't see the lobbies where apparent CDL pros slide in and kill me 2 sec after respawn over and over and over - which happens half the matches in the regular playlist. I actually HAVE FUN, which leads me to believe removing SBMM would improve the damn game.
They said why it's there - so players don't get frustrated and quit. Except it's doing the opposite.
If you're commenting on a video about cod on the internet, you aren't amongst the ultra majority that this system helps.
They would be completely okay losing you and I as players because the system benefits the ultra majority of players (well over 90%) that are some of the absolute worst players you've ever seen.
Unfortunately we think we matter because we see other people online with similar opinions, but the overwhelming majority of players never even engages with the game outside of turning their console on and booting up the game, while players like us engage with the game in other ways.
@@zeroshadowzs Not sure about that 90% or if they are being helped in any way (doubt it), but from my experience I consistently get opponents OF MY OWN SKILL LEVEL in various LTM/ fun modes where SBMM is tuned way down (same applies to non-core modes in Warzone). This happens only RARELY in regular MP.
I seriously doubt me actually having fun vs a balanced competition would cause 90% of the playerbase to quit or even suffer in any way.
@starlite_lord4321 ltms and non core modes are not where the majority of players play. Your results when you play apart from the main group of players are always going to be somewhat different.
It's definitely at least 90% because I'm in the top 5% of players with barely a 1.5 kd. Hell, you yourself might be in the top 5% also. Me being in the top 5% would lead me to believe 95% are trash but I lowballed it because it makes my point stronger, and that is that the system keeps the ultra majority playing longer and that ultra majority is about 90% of the playerbase.
@@zeroshadowzs According to "research" there is a trash pool of around 40% of the player base, and in theory they are kept separate from anyone who can actually play this game. Your top 5% thing at 1.5 k/d is correct. But objectively SBMM increases ping even if you live inside a server center, and it also takes into account only your RECENT performance. Ace here has said a lot about how random and annoying that is, and also makes you feel your OWN skills and improvement don't matter much, your success in next game is mostly (pre) decided by the game itself. There should be a better way.
Lol I think you’re getting more SBMM in the ltms
Unrelated but 11:13 is hilarious lol - the pause after you realized you weren't able to refill your ammo yet is gold.
I didn't notice this while watching, thanks for pointing it out😂
Cod helped confirm leaving the franchise after this matchmaking system developed was a good idea
Developers don’t care if you leave their game you bought overpriced DLC 😂☠️
Ya, those who don't like to face like skilled players often leave
0:41 “ping is king”
yeah yeah yeah, that’s exactly why my friends and I have 70 ping and the enemies get to have like 6 or 7. Riiiiiight.
My biggest problem is not ping even tho its big, its that winning or losing is not controled by my effort its something they want to control, insane.
They clearly lied in this blog post. A former dev for the game literally called it out as lies.
Which one said that? 😮
Thanks for telling us who the dev is
@@spaceman2517 that would be Brian Bright.
@@b1zzarecont4ct that would be Brian Bright.
@@Swagceus thanks. I remembered their first name, but not their last, so I didn't mention it. Lol
When I read that bit about “faster lobby finding” I audibly laughed out loud. I could only think about Nero’s video of him finding (and loading into) a match in every CoD b/w CoD4 and Ghosts before he got into ONE lobby in MWII (2022)
I don’t think that comment is being made to say that it is finding lobbies faster when compared to past matchmaking systems, but with regards to their current weighted matchmaking system… skill was considered far far less in older CODs and the constraints are essentially nonexistent in the older games due to the low amount of available lobbies. I mean, I can find a lobby of Ghosts super fast, but my ping is also 70+ since there’s not many available lobbies.
Majority of those are P2P connections as well, over trying to connect to a data center. Those had massive issues over Modern COD. Clearly your RUclipsr was making entertainment over education on that video.
@@DamienDarkside They did not have "massive issues" over modern CoD. P2P was not perfect, and dedicated servers offer a lot of benefits sure, but with the systems they've added in addition to dedicated servers makes for an objectively worse experience. It wasn't "entertainment" content, it was blatantly showing shortcomings of the current system.
The fact they stated people leaving matches makes matchmaking worse, and then lying about ping being king (Its the #1 reason i leave matches-terrible ping) is a massive loop of irony.
I read it and I think it was exactly what the community should've expected. My personal opinions on the blog most of the things they said were bs and they will continue to cater towards the bad player.
What parts are a lie exactly? The issue with the matchmaking is the dynamic skill ratings, the very thing that protects bad players… they acknowledge that this system exists. It’s definitely PR speak and they try to word it in ways that make seem things less impactful than they may actually be, but I’m not sure what y’all think they’re just actively being dishonest about…
17:00 - this is something that is the biggest head scratcher to me... we all know those games where you know that matchmaking has decided you will lose, so what exactly is the reason I don't just back out of that game? If the options are waste 15 min and lose or waste no min and lose which are you going to choose? It's so short-sighted and horrible UX
Generally because in my experience quitting the match doesn't remove your status as "marked to lose". Next match you join will still have you lose it, you quit again and again but it won't go away until you actually lose.
I believe they should stop trying to reinvent the wheel. Let us simply pick what modes we want to play without removing them and replacing them. If I want to run shipment 24/7 let me do that. I should be able to pick from a list of modes within multiplayer and decide what I want to play versus being forced to play whatever is available
Ping is king thats why EU players match with US east coast all the time, basically if you have half a brain and working thumbs this game will do anything to screw you over.
I am sometimes matched vs asians with like 200-250 ping xD
I actually live within a few miles of a data center and have seen ping as low as like 9 ms. But I have noticed that this ping can go up to 50-60 ms sometimes and those lobbies tend to be sweatier. The difference when you go from basically as low as ping can be to 60 ms is noticeable. As much as I'd like to believe that ping is king, my ping should never be higher than ~10-15 ms. Would be curious if other people who live really close to data centers have had the same experience. Because when you live that close, any server that's not the one right next to you is immediately noticeable.
Noticed the same thing. Also see a lot of p2p matches instead of the dedicated servers which I am close to.
I have the opposite problem where I live in Hawaii so the closest data center is at minimum 50-70 ping. But I notice that after a few matches the game will always throw me into 100-115 ms ping, eventually self-correct back to lower ping, rinse and repeat.
@@TomKenAwaI’m jealous. I live in Tokyo and the LOWEST ping I get is 100. The average is 130-180…
I usually have 12 to 20 ping, but after one good game at that ping I get sent into 60 ping matches and then 80 ping matches and you can really feel the time to die decrease.
I either have 19 or 29ms, or 60. It's so jarring game to game because you feel the difference
Recent maps? I get te same maps all the time. Some hardly get to play on.
Consequence of map voting unfortunately. Still way better than without it, but there's definitely some tweaks they could at least experiment with
i wish the devs would watch your videos. your discussion on this was so thorough and well-articulated
One thing also is the balance in the swings: When you play well, you get to the hard lobbies for many games and when you have suffered for long enough, then you get 1 or 2 good lobbies. So it's much quicker to jump to the sweaty lobbies than it is to get back from there
I think one thing they indirectly pointed out with this is that players that don’t play the objective will have a better perceived experience because they game will make it easier for them to win after consecutive losses. So if you want to enjoy the game more, play for K/D only and not to win
Which sucks for those of us who enjoy Domination, Hardpoint, and Headquarters. Hooray
No way .win lose is a factor small factor. Kills and kd is bigger for them and accuracy with how much you move
@elg7365 if you play objective and get kills while on objective your spm will be higher than just some guy going for kills. Spm and w/l mean the most for sbmm. K/d really doesn't matter at all.
@@elg7365 idk man, have you seen Nero’s cinema where played with a squad of 4 and they win like 8 games in a row? They eventually put them on a French server with 200ms ping and they still won that match, so the next match they didn’t even give them any teammates from the start of the match to the end of the match and they finally lost
@@keiskay no it doesn't for sure. Movement accuracy and kills. Spm means nothing cause it doesn't depict you individual skill but your dedication to wins. Wins they don't care. They care about individual performance.
Absolutely insane they blame us for the Rustment point. They have the data that people prefer Shipment and it is actively harming the playlist. Then.why.dont.you.separate.the.playlist. Or have persistent lobbies as Ace said. And you can also replace “player experience” with “Activision’s pockets.”
But you ARE to blame for having terrible taste.
@@trashaimgamer7822How is he to blame? He's just a part of the majority of people. Personally I prefer Rust. They should simply be separate he's right.
Why isn't rust and shipment in the regular map Playlists to begin with? I tend to vote Rust because I never get a chance to play it.
Now I'm wondering how big a factor the playlist selection is, because I exclusively stuck to Domination and Hardpoint and had to straight up stop playing the game. Worst matchmaking experience I've ever had in CoD.
In what way do you perceive this impacting your experience? I would be shocked if it was super heavily weighted and am not sure why it would make such a terrible impact anyway. The largest factor beyond ping is the skill ratings.
What modes you play shouldn't effect sbmm at all, that's dumb, and does nothing for anyone. Same with voice chat. Wtf does that have to do with anything?
The complaints all these years have fuk all to do with "stomping noobs'. It's fukn connection quality. Always. Cod is literally the only game that I CONSISTENTLY get 100ms+ ping...why!?!?
I can play any cod before mw19 and have less than 20ms ping at all times. I can play literally any modern mp game, and constantly get around 20ms ping. In every cod AFTER blops 4, my ping has been atrocious. I have never had better internet. Fibre. Main city. Hardwired. How the fuk can you justify 100+ms ping when we have dedicated servers.
Everyone defending this shit have a lower IQ than the number of fingers they have, not sorry, your dumb. Period
13:06 - SBMM - when finding enemies and team mates - I’ve got a 2.85 KDR in multiplayer and I’ve noticed this when I play solo, if the entire lobby is a bunch of solo players, it will have what is essentially a (2+4)vs(2+4) , where’s its 2 highly skilled team mates and 4 atrocious team mates (who seem exponentially worse in terms of skill) , versus 2 highly skilled enemies and 4 atrocious enemies. Just some anecdotal experience that I’ve noticed almost invariably every match….
Nero also made a video where he found 6 games on 6 different cods while he was searching for a game on mw 2019 so (ping is king) is another lie.
It’s all a lie bro. Haven’t you learned you can’t trust big companies ever yet.
@@xxPhoenixX-sg9tr yes I know corporations are the biggest reasons why cod is shit now
Pink is king can have many different interpretations. Ace clearly discusses this in the video.
@@xxPhoenixX-sg9trNah, they’re not outright lying in this post, but that doesn’t mean they’re being 100% transparent and truthful either. How things are worded are super important so as to not completely purged themselves. Very common PR language
@@TheHeadinchargegood to see someone who understands how these snakes operate.
Homie forgot that people have this crazy op ability called lying
I think a good option for an "skill-matchless" mode would be something similar to gunfight or a party-mode that bridges the gap between pure party mode and regular multiplayer. A mode where the variety of players is let loose but also gives people randomized loadouts for the match.
Maybe even give people a selection of 3 randomized loadouts in the loadout screen so they aren't just stuck to one for the whole match. Would feel like playing a regular match since it's not round-based and there's some consistency in which loadout you choose to use but it would be really fun for people that are tired of the strictness of matchmaking or even the strictness of the meta without losing all player customization.
If they really wanted to go further they could allow you to edit specific parts of the loadout but leave everything else locked, like allowing players to change the field upgrade and keep their equipped killstreaks but that's it.
I'd honestly play the hell out of a mode like this because I don't like pure random or pure party modes where it gets very stale very quickly without player choice and the meta really bothers me sometimes.
legit was thinking - has ace put out a video on the SBMM blog. Pulled up the channel and video is 3 mins old 🤣
it’s crazy how much they are against removing disbanding lobbies
the only way "ping is king" is if Activision willingly admits that their servers suck, because I average about 50-100ms of ping with good internet, if that really is the best ping the game can find, then their servers are terrible
It's not that the servers suck...it's eomm
Man the gymnastics you try to pull with the “ping is king” line is CRAZY
This is the most well-made and level-headed response video I've seen so far to this blog post. You brought up some great points that I hadn't even considered, and found myself agreeing with just about everything you said.
Seeing this blog post pretty much confirmed what I was already thinking about the matchmaking system, and I firmly believe that nothing is going to change. Apparently their data seems to suggest that the current matchmaking is somehow good for them, but it definitely isn't good for the vast majority of the vocal community. Unless I'm proven wrong and they actually make significant enough changes to improve the experience, I'm done with COD. I've put up with this for 5 years, and seeing this blog post combined with the recent layoffs has simply evaporated what little hope I had left for the franchise to improve in the future. I simply don't see anything pointing towards things improving from here on out, and there are simply more enjoyable games to play and ways to spend my free time than playing a game that feels more like a job.
Still, I'm going to continue to keep up with any big news regarding COD, if just for entertainment at seeing how much worse things get, and I'll continue to support Ace, who I still think is one of the best COD content creators out there.
The delta ping thing explains the skill based hit detection. I get a 2-4ms lobbies in my area most of the time but the hit detection is way different game to game. It seems when I'm being punished in sweat lobbies I'm also put in lobbies where lag compensation is at the highest, favoring the players with ping closer to the average/delta.
First and Activision is lying Sbmm wasn’t in since cod 4 a former iw lead even called out their bs
Even as far back as CoD4, there was always a protected bracket for the lowest of low skill players. So technically, there was SBMM in the previous games, just not in the very strict form it has been since MW2019 and on. It's one of those "technically correct but also leaving out information and not explaining the full situation" kind of statements that this blog seemed to have quite a few of.
Some form of skill incorporated into the matchmaking system has certainly been around since COD 4, but that system is totally different than what we consider to be SBMM today. Also, what dev specifically? I see a lot of fake devs popping up on reddit and twitter and none of them have actually been devs.
yeah i can still remember when the big tobacco corps got up in front of a federal inquiry and all said under oath that the believe nicotine isn't addictive.
They say that how much you play is not factored in, but it's obvious to me that how much you've played (or not played) *recently* does affect how they calculate your recent performance. If I take a week or more off the game my first games back on are very easy, then naturally my performance puts me into more closely matched (or stacked against me) lobbies.
1) this matchmaking system was live well before mw19. I started to feel it in AW when everyone on the enemy team had 3 bars and an obsidian steed or a speakeasy when you was in the game you was meant to lose. It's also when Condrey spouted "Ping is King" seems like an Activision tag line.
2)whilst they say they don't manipulate in game mechanics such as hit reg the fact that ping is manipulated indirectly effects the hit reg.
The whole post was a nothing post. Especially without the data.
If there isn't AI in thegame then they are putting me against really bad players after long losing streaks because I'll drop 40 plus kills for a few games and that's not normal for me. It feels like actual bots.
Agree with the bot comment. Does no one think they are capable or reproducing players' movements & tactics after years of releasing games??
@@cache780 They aren't bots, it isn't hard to imagine that players really do suck that badly or are literally disabled. It would take being REALLY REALLY bad consistently (like reverse boosting levels of bad) to get into those kinds of lobbies tho.
In 5 out of 10 matches I literally get PC players and “other console” players and I have crossplay turned off. When I try to check their profiles, they’re non-existent , and everything is locked so I’m unable to even send a whisper or message. If those aren’t bots I don’t know what is. I’ve sent multiple messages to activision support showing evidence and they don’t even acknowledge it. They simply ignore it or say, “oh, we will send this to the higher ups!” (They’ve been saying that for 6 months now)
What I think should be SBMM is this:
Each player has a skill rating 1-100 (for the sake of this description.
When searching, a lobby chooses random players who are all within 10 rating of each other.
This means, when you find a game you could be with players +/-10 rating, depending on the random lobby that has gathered the players.
This means that you will be one of the more skilled, less skilled, or something in the middle each game.
With the pool of players, the lobby splits the players so that the average skill ratings are as close as possible for each team
The skill rating would be based over a longer time period, say 20 games or so, so that there is not a feeling of punishment for playing well, rather just a gradual improvement over time
What I got out of this blog is that they're not utilizing their focus correctly. For one they don't seem to put enough parity between the components to their matchmaking, and as a result it ends up giving everybody really weird matches every single time. Another big problem is the fact that they seem to be too scared of losing player retention, but this wouldn't be happening if they just made it so the lobbies stay open and people would be allowed to stay in the lobby after the match is over just like the old days. COD was at its best when you could forge friendships through enjoyable social interaction combined with a fun gaming experience, and as time has gone on they've gone in the opposite direction and now nobody is happy except a very specific part of the audience.
I gave up on COD altogether. I just don’t enjoy it anymore. I’ll keep getting your content.
Black Gold instant leave match for me
My experience with this game vs what they're saying:
1. Honestly, my ping is usually pretty good. I don't normally have a ping above 40.
2. It doesn't feel like the game prioritizes different maps in my experience. The other day, I got 3 lobbies back to back playing Skidrow.
3. This may just be a SnD thing, but my group all play with a controller on xbox and we are constantly seeing kbam players in our lobbies.
Edit: I wanna clarify that it has been like this since MW19
4. The skill disparity comment is complete and utter garbage. When I'm playing respawn modes, about 1/4 games, I'll have teammates who go 5-25, I'll be barely positive, and the enemy team are all playing like they're trying to win a championship.
My experience is the when playing with a party of at least 4 , helps a lot. We definitely see the game fill lower skill players on the higher win streaks
This shit is a slap in every consumer's face. They're just lying, as they always did.
I can't wait to hear this man's thoughts on this. 30 minutes of solid input while i eat my post work out
I’m a patent attorney. You’re absolutely right that a description of an embodiment of a claimed invention in a patent (e.g. skill based change in game elements) is not evidence that it has ever been made, used, or commercialized or will ever be made, used, or commercialized. However, you did imply that a patent that has gone abandoned would mean that use of claimed invention would suddenly cease. That’s not correct. A patent only give the holder a right to exclude others from selling the claimed invention. It does not give the holder a right to use the invention or mean that when the patent expires or goes abandoned that they can no longer use the invention. It would basically have no effect on their ability to use the invention.
I appreciate you chiming in on this topic. You're right, I didn't word that as well as I should have as I am fully aware that an expired patent doesn't exclude you from using it. I was trying not to get too derailed and long winded with the topic and rushed my point a bit. In your experience, is it common for a large company to abandon a patent that they're actively using in one of their current products?
Perhaps I'm wrong on this but to me this leads me to believe that it's far more likely (but not impossible) that they aren't using it than the alternative.
@@TheXclusiveAceabsolutely. They would never let a patent expire that covered a technology that was actively being commercialized. The fees required to keep a patent active are pennies to them.
You nailed the analysis generally. Patents can be a good signpost or clue about where a company is headed but are certainly not a guarantee that they are using the patented technology without other evidence.
Thanks for the insight!
When a video from Ace is longer than 10-15 minutes, you know it's going to be spicy.
I feel like the input thing is bs. I've got pictures of multiple lobbies where I'm either the only controller user, or the only one on Xbox
Anecdotal, but I have similar experiences where I am the only PC player and the only player on KBM
yeah COD doesnt let u separate controller input. its just a parameter. its pure bullshit on their part
COD is trash and it shows. They are nothing but liars 🤣🤣
Great video. One of the only youtubers that does a rational analysis of the info instead of parroting opinions from the community
I'm really glad this manipulated matchmaking came after I aged out of cod, the good ol days would've been ruined.
You are so better at taking reviews of others. So many youtubers would just yell thinking its cool to do it. Thank god i followed you and thank god you finally covered it
They added SBMM around black ops 2 and after AW they started to slowly crank it up each year r
But in BO2 it wasn't as strong as post MW 2019 era cods.
I couldn’t agree with you more. BO2 they introduced SBMM. And in 201 9 it went from casual to rank mode on pubs and this years COD is like everyone is playing like their on COD league.
SBMM was fine until they added disbanding lobbies and eventually the AI chat moderation. I can care less if the new, bad, or disabled players aren't playing against me but when I can't make new friends or chat casually with other players, thats when it becomes a problem.
Advanced warfare SBMM is significantly heavier than anything else in its era and then picks up heavily again in MW2019 and stays heavy until the current era where we are now
It's weird that back in the 2009 MW2 days, there was no SBMM but rarely did I see large amounts of players people back out mid match. This was even after getting dumped on by chopper gunners etc.
Could it be that player attitudes have changed and necessitate SBMM?
Learning how to get open nat rather than moderate on pc has transformed my gameplay. Having open nat resulted in lower ping and much quicker matchmaking which has definitely been more enjoyable.
P.s. I am just another nut that loves playing mostly hardcore shipment or the smaller maps (mainly for camo grinding & overall gameplay enjoyment).
Can we not just have a SBMM playlist and a best ping but no SBMM playlist?
Won’t change much since only the high skill players are going to play in the ping playlist. Most people do not have significant ping issues in the game, and if you consistently have ping issues, it’s more than likely just your connection. Make sure to set your proper DNS server in your console settings and configure your router properly as those are usually the cause to consistently bad ping.
Fact is that COD has many millions of a user base. The people and influencers that don't like SBMM are the vocal minority. Period. I hate when people say "the player base doesn't like XYZ .."...
No.... YOU don't. Don't speak for everyone.
Activision has metrics galore and they know better than anyone if it works to keep engagement or not .. if it grows the base or not. The fa t they are keeping means it works. Period.
It's common f'ing sense. For every conceited ass that plays 40 hours a week and gets their rocks off by curb stomping new players, there is 10 times more people that don't want to get stomped. They play here and there after work to relieve stress .. to have fun with buds... And feel like "man even though in not great at this game, that was a close match"!
That is what keeps the player base healthy... And people coming back. Cause the "hardcore" players despite their bullshit threats of they won't play cause of it, WILL keep playing. But the casual player who isnt having fun cause they keep getting bashed, will leave and won't come back.
Just admit you’re bad at the game lmao
@@ericbaker8781 Lol was that suppose to make me mad?? Sry bro.... i AM bad at it cause I have a life...why i like SBMM.
LMAO
@@guardianali get good homie 👍
@@ericbaker8781 get a life dog.. 😎
@@guardianali go write another paragraph about how call of duty is too hard for you
Thank you for linking it in the description as well. Just saves me having to search for it.
Couldn’t agree more about the mixed skill level parties.
I have some friends that we played together all the time and we don’t anymore because someone is getting smoked and not having any fun.
Basically they said that "This is how WE want YOU to play the game, kindly fck off if you dont like it".
1:02 no we dont expect connection quality to be everything, just a big part of it. The biggest issue is that if you do good in a few games, the sbmm changes the game from being mostly good-connection lobbies to mostly low ping lobbies
Mixed bag this. On one hand we got official confirmation on what we already know... on another, what is this data we speak of? Low K/D players? High W/L players? To have the discussion finally is nice but it really doesn't indicate any changes coming.
i really miss the days of finding like, a solid lobby, and sticking with it for hours. not one i stomped in, not one where i was getting blown out, but a lobby where it just 'felt' good to play in. ive never, ever felt that even once in all the games post mw19
The COD community truly doesn't deserve a creator as level-headed and rational as you, X. I particularly liked what you said about the devs blaming players for backing out of Black Gold etc. That's 100% a game-design problem (not to mention a map-design problem).
I think a big point that's being missed across the board is the packet loss. It's a huge issue since vanguard, and that's because of skill-based matchmaking. Call of duty the only game I get packet loss on it causes stutters delays clunky gameplay.
They literally show their hand that ping is not king and they just want you below a certain value.
Ex) looking for a match
Since the article dropped I've been getting the hardest lobbies I've ever gotten in my 10+ years of playing COD. Went 44-5 in one match and since then I couldn't break 10 kills. My last 10 matches were all losses as well.
Call of Duty is the only game that makes me regret doing well.
Ace, you are a Legend! Appreciate all the work into CoD and trying to help us out. You were the first RUclips Cod Gamer I subscribed to b/c you teach and provide invites for a better experience. You've helped me alot and ❤ to you for that. PERSISTENT LOBBYS are needed to get us back to GOOD COD!
32 min babe, let’s go
You do amazing work Ace. Out of all CoD RUclipsrs, you’re the one I keep coming back to. Keep up the work mate. Happy life. 👍🏽
One thing I miss in the matchmaking lobby is the former party bracket indicators they used to have - that is, it used to be clearly indicated that players 1,2,3,4 were members of the same party. This helped me know what I was up against as a player, if say, most of my whole team are lone wolf players pitted against a known party of a 4 or 5 coordinated team. Not sure how SBMM handles that on its invisible priority list.
Been waiting for your response ace, was not disappointed
Activision: "Ping is king"
Me: ends up in irish and UK servers after doing well in a few matches (I live in the West Coast in the US)
YES! Playing with friends got fked sideways with this.
The video I’ve been waiting for!!!
I personally think a lot of their blog post fails under scrutiny. Specifically, the one about how they saw a noticeable difference in player retention on their “no sbmm weekends”. I struggle to believe that removing a tertiary matchmaking criteria (literally their words) created a noticeable difference. And, if it truly did, I struggle to believe it’s actually a tertiary criteria. I’m not into any of the TikTok spammed conspiracies but I’m not sure how much of this I’m taking at face value.
Hey Ace, always appreciate your level headed, academic approach to these topics. So exhausted of arguing with people who have no evidence for a claim. There is plenty of issues with COD that are already confirmed, we don’t need to go into conspiracy theories. We have enough issues to fix right at our feet.
As always, another great video!
that "it's my turn to win" and "it's my turn to lose" is exactly the sentiment my friend group began to feel in this iteration of the game. It's gotten so bad that the less-skilled players in our group no longer want to play with the more-skilled players. The best player in our group straight up quit playing the game over this feeling of absolutely helplessness in the matches where the outcome seems completely pre-determined which is a damn shame.
On the topic of the Rust/Shipment issue, I'd love to have the ability to filter which maps I can matchmake into just like how I can filter game modes in quickplay. There are a few maps I'd just rather not play.
This blog is just entirely lies. Ping is used to handicap good players. In MW ‘19 & MIIW I would play my first 2-3 matches on my local server. I would almost always be the top scorer for those 2-3 matches. After that, the matchmaking would geofence me about 2,000 miles away from my location. This usually only added about 20ms ping according the my NetDuma. However the ping spikes and tick rate were terrible to the point where I would die from people who hadn’t even appeared on my screen yet. I really like the changes they’ve made towards game mechanics in MW3, but they’ve clearly continued doubling down on this weird EOMM handicap system so I still haven’t bought it. The other weird thing is literally the last match I played of MW2, I hadn’t played in months. It was the best connection I had had in years. Afterwords, a survey I had never seen popped up asking if I enjoyed the match. It was so creepy and weird.
No kidding i played a mw2 match after 2 months ended up dropping a 15kd ffa match going 30-2, game me a survey after which was super strange
Who’s got the best video on setting up the netduma routers ?
As a hardcore fan of COD I 1000% believe what we have going on with SBMM is exactly what the game is needing, only way I can prove it is my friends that just casually play COD I know 13 people that aren't as invested in COD as me and they have enjoyed COD so much more because they no longer run into people like me with 1.2 - 2.0 kds in CODs.
"Spending money doesnt effect matchmaking" does not equal "spending money doesnt effect the gameplay". I think its more likely to be noticed in warzone and zombies, badically amounting to better drops
They took a while to write this and every word has its purpose. You pointed it out a little, some of the wording is curious and gives them a lot of leeway. That's not a mistake
I think the biggest problem, which you also mentioned, is being punished for playing better than usual. Just because I play better than average in a few rounds does not mean I’m ready for CDL level lobbies, but it feels like that’s where SBMM puts me.
I have over 300 hours in zombies alone so to here 'Ping is king' while having footage showing 130-190+ ping lobbies and almost 250GB of footage alone I immediately recognise they started this entire blog post with a easily disprovable statement and therfore I simply don't believe anything they say. If they won't communicate with the community in good faith then what is even the point of the post? This only makes things worse