Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 devs hold 3-hour AMA without ever mentioning skill-based matchmaking
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 developer Sledgehammer Games held a Reddit AMA on Monday intended to answer a ton of questions about the game’s multiplayer mode. However, it remained silent on one of the most controversial questions of the game: skill-based matchmaking.
For those unfamiliar, Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) has long been a hot topic in the world of Call of Duty, as it aims to place players in lobbies made up of players with similar skills. Unfortunately, some more skilled players lose on purpose so they can compete against less skilled players.
Many requested that SBMM simply become part of ranked playlists, but these requests and many others were never fulfilled. Activision has never really commented on the issue of SBMM, but it is a very important issue to many Call of Duty players, as evidenced by the majority of comments in the AMA.
“I think skill-based matchmaking, engagement-optimized matchmaking, and team balancing is probably one of the biggest complaints,” ImMarksman said in the AMA’s top-rated commentary. “Not only is it incredibly frustrating for solo players to just queue up and enjoy the game, but it also makes it very difficult to play with friends if the skill difference is too great. People often don’t want to use systematically ‘meta’ weapons to prevail in games. But the system doesn’t really seem to understand this until you’ve suffered for hours. Would it be possible to test having them much lower in this experimental playlist? It would be cool to see and try.”
Sledgehammer Games hasn’t responded to ImMarksman or the countless other users who have asked about SBMM, but they have talked about a ton of other elements of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, including the controversial skins of operator Gaia and Gaia Blackcell. Nicknamed “Groot” by the community due to their resemblance to everyone’s favorite Colossus tree/Flora from Guardians of the Galaxy, these skins are called “pay-to-win” due to the difficulty of seeing them in-game .
While Sledgehammer has yet to reveal the solution, it has confirmed that “adjustments to the Gaia and Gaia Blackcell operator skins are in the works for Modern Warfare III.” “In a future update to the game, we will disable this item until the changes can be released to all players,” the developer continued.
One comment that excited fans was the promise that Sledgehammer would test “non-disband lobbies with a cohort of players to determine the performance of such a change. If these tests go well, we will explore a rollout to all players.” .
Although this does not resolve SBMM issues, many users have been happy with this announcement, including CallMePuzzle.
“Thanks Sledgehammer! I promise adding undisband won’t be a mistake,” CallMePuzzle wrote. “Whether it’s making tough matches more bearable or allowing people to make more friends, it will only help improve the game. Keep up the great work of communicating and listening to feedback, It means a lot!”
Sledgehammer also addressed concerns that Modern Warfare 2’s weapons were not as competitive compared to Modern Warfare 3’s weapons. Considering one of Modern Warfare 3’s main selling points was that you could take with you all your gear from last year’s game, that was important.
“Weapon balancing is one of the most important things we look at daily. Our goal is to have a meta change from season to season to keep things fresh and interesting,” said Sledgehammer . “That being said, we want as many weapons as possible to be viable to accommodate the variety of playstyles we have in our community. This is where we look closely at the data to target adjustments immediate for weapons that appear to be superior or inferior.” – efficient. We expect Season 1 to have higher level adjustments with S1.5 to have deeper changes. “
The team noted that data showed that the most used SMGs were underperforming and “that’s not great.” Sledgehammer wants each weapon category to have its own distinct role for different playstyles, and SMGs should excel as “close-range TTK, ADS speed, sprint to shoot, and general mobility.”
Other points addressed by Sledgehammer Games were:
- Fixes for Final Killcams and HUD are in progress.
- Scatter Mine and RGL-80 will be adjusted for Hardcore playlists as they are overperforming due to their decreasing health.
- The team is “actively investigating” a reduction in the maximum damage of frag grenades. These changes would reduce damage taken by players at the center and outer edges of the explosion.
- There are currently no plans for a 1v1 mode, but it could return if interest is there.
- The team wants to try Streak Looping, which would reward players with another run through their Killstreaks if they can continue to stay alive and rack up kills. It might appear in a future experimental playlist.
- Classic weapons from the Modern Warfare series could very well return in future seasonal updates, including shotguns and sniper rifles.
- There are no plans to create custom crosshairs at this time.
- The team will continue to research “improvement and optimization of a problem such as packet bursting.”
- The team wants to continue making limited-time modes playable 24/7 in Hardcore playlists, but this will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
- A 10v10 Moshpit playlist is currently scheduled, and Sledgehammer has announced that there may be a way to accommodate even more than 20 players on a 6v6 map.
- Sledgehammer is aware of some issues affecting mouse input, desync, and inconsistency in hit registration.
- There are no plans to add a third-person playlist at this time. It is, however, still available in custom games.
- Cyberattack is not part of Sledgehammer’s current seasonal plans, but it could return if interest is there.
- Ghost T/V Camo will only hide players from enemy drones if they are moving, but the team is investigating reports that “motion detection while stationary is too aggressive.”
- There are no plans to adjust the Covert Sneakers perk, but Sledgehammer notes that players “are not completely silent with this perk equipped, there are still other sounds that can give them away.”
- Gun Game is coming back “very soon”.
- There are currently no plans to implement a specific ping limit filter.
- Field of view bug and Cold Blooded Loadout bug are being looked into by the team.
- There are no plans to bring back Headquarters or Replay/Theater mode due to the amount of effort it requires.
- There are no plans to bring Combat Pacing back from Call of Duty: Vanguard, but Sledgehammer plans to experiment with the intensity of matches and thinks upcoming 10v10 playlists will “scratch that Combat Pacing itch.”
- Sledgehammer plans to add a way to preview finishers and executions.
For more, check out our final Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 review, full details on Season 1, and Sledgehammer’s previous comments on the state of the game.
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Adam Bankhurst is a staff writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Tic.
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