Black Ops Cold War Alpha Reignites SBMM Debate
"Should Skill Based Matchmaking be in Call of Duty and other FPS shooters?"
In esports, trying to answer this is like cracking the enigma code, or letting pandora out of the box. Everybody has their own opinion, and no matter what, somebody is always going to disagree.
Well, the esports scene erupted over the weekend, as players from multiple titles debated over the Black Ops Cold War SBMM.
As the Black Ops Cold War Alpha run went live on PlayStation, popular CDL players and content creators poured on to the game, joined by the members of the public for the first time. Playing across five maps and limited game modes, players quickly found that the skill of their lobbies was getting increasingly hard. After dropping a positive kill to death ratio, players would be placed in a much harder lobby, filled with players who performed at a similar standard.
The debate lies with the competitiveness that this adds to casual lobbies. Many Call of Duty veterans took to social media to argue that the SBMM works perfectly, for a ranked playlist, whereas when you want to play for fun in casual lobbies, the SBMM should be eradicated.
Seth "Scump" Abner, who is known as one of the best Call of Duty players ever, weighed his opinion, which sparked interest from the likes of Dr. Disrespect. The doc replied with a previous clip of Scump getting a nuclear medal in a casual lobby, inferring that this is unfair on the players on the other team who were getting shredded by one of the best players around.
Scump's fellow Chicago Huntsmen content creator Davis "Hitch" Edwards also sparked the debate.
Team SoloMid's Super Smash Bros. Melee star William "Leffen" Hjelte then hit out at the community, saying that the Black Ops Cold War SBMM is unfair on the large majority of casual players that play it casually, rather than competing at the highest level.
The obvious fix for this is to bring in a ranked playlist, which the Call of Duty competitive scene has longed for since League Play back in the Black Ops 2 era. Giving competitive players a platform to try their best and 'sweat' will all-but remove the SBMM debate, especially if they are given a rank and rewards for competing.
Whether this will be implemented into Black Ops Cold War is yet to be seen. However, Treyarch has been active in responding to the feedback of players so far, meaning only positive things are to come.
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