If there’s one thing that’s been talked about a lot recently among esports pros, streamers, and us mere mortals (in the online shooter space), it’s the matchmaking system in Call of Duty and how poorly it often seems to work. It’s not uncommon to be thrown into lobbies where players chasing nukes whiz past at 300km/h and shoot you in the head with a single unscoped bullet, and at the request of players, Activision has started a blog series where they explain in detail how their skill-based matchmaking works.
In the last post we found out that the voice chat options and the choice of map Resurgence are important, and today we found out that the “time to match” is more important than the “skill”, which is undoubtedly part of the problem. Anyway, you can here read more.
Call of Duty Matchmaking Intel – Whitepaper #2 “Today, the Call of Duty team released the next installment in their ongoing white paper series outlining Call of Duty’s matchmaking system, titled “Matchmaking Series: The Role of Skill in Matchmaking.” This technical paper provides insight into matchmaking in Call of Duty multiplayer and shows how we’re always working to create a balanced system for the benefit of all players. While skill is one of many factors in matchmaking; it is not the driving force behind Call of Duty’s matchmaking system.
In terms of skills, one area that is crucial to consider is team balance. Team balancing is very important to creating games where players can have fun and enjoy competitive play. Blowouts result in players leaving the game, which negatively impacts the player pool. Team balance itself is covered in more detail in the white paper. As discussed in the first Matchmaking Intel blog, Call of Duty has considered player skill as part of the matchmaking process as far back as Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007), among other things. One of the topics covered in the white paper is current and historical testing of skill relaxation in matchmaking (increasing the skill gap between players in a lobby).”
