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Call of Duty players are flocking to Activision’s privacy help page after a YouTuber showed off a method to discover their hidden skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) rating.
For years, SBMM has been a hot topic in the Call of Duty community, with some claiming it ruins the experience, while others claim it helps level the playing field in competitive multiplayer. Highly skilled Call of Duty players often complain to SBMM about throwing them into what they call “sweaty” lobbies full of similarly skilled players. Meanwhile, Activision has kept player skill ratings under wraps, forcing speculation about where they might sit compared to others and how it varies from game to game.
However, the popular Call of Duty YouTuber TheXclusiveAce explained a method which will let players know the skill rating of every Multiplayer game they’ve played up until Vanguard 2021. However, it involves jumping through some hoops and you’ll have to wait a while before receiving the data.
The method involves going there Activision’s privacy page and submitting a new request to access personal information. You’ll need to sign in to your Activision account to automatically access Call of Duty games, but once you’re done, you can submit a request. IGN has gone through this process and can verify its legitimacy, although you may have to wait a day or two for the data to arrive via email.
TheXclusiveAce received his data and, in his video on the subjectit showed how wide it is. It shows every single multiplayer match in detail, the mode you played, the map you played on, the operator and skin you used, and even the run equipped. You can see the number of hits you got in the match, your longest streak, damage done and taken, and if you’re interested, the percentage of time you’re moving. Lots of data points go into it, but the skill stat is the most interesting here.
With his data, TheXclusiveAce was able to chart his Black Ops 6 skill rating, showing how it changed over time. TheXclusiveAce, who will be one of the better players in Call of Duty multiplayer compared to the general player base, has a skill rating of around 400 during his time with Black Ops 6, although there are occasional big drops and rises.
Unfortunately, this data alone does not help players understand how their skill rating compares to that of others. It also doesn’t show the lobby’s skill rating or why a player’s skill rating has changed from game to game.
However, TheXclusiveAce compared his K/D ratio to his skill rating to try to draw conclusions on Black Ops 6’s SBMM. From what he can tell, poor play relative to previous performance lowers skill rating, and better play relative to previous performance increases skill rating, even if it takes a while to kick in either way. TheXclusiveAce suspects that lobbying skill ratings influence individual skill ratings; If SBMM expects you to perform at a certain level in terms of lobbying skill rating and you fail to meet that expectation, your skill rating may drop even if you had a good game.
last year, Activision explained how Call of Duty’s SBMM works in rather vague terms. Skill is determined by a player’s “overall performance,” Activision said. This includes kills, deaths, wins, losses, as well as mode selection and endgame as a general measure across all multiplayer experiences. “This is a light match. constantly updating and reacting to your gameplay,” explained Activision “Skill is not only about matching players against the right enemies but also about finding teammates.”
Activision said that skill in matchmaking means that all players (regardless of skill level) are likely to experience wins and losses more proportionately. “We use player performance to show that the difference between the most skilled lobby player and the least skilled lobby player is not so wide that players believe their game is a waste of time,” Activision said.
The question now is whether the Call of Duty community will work together to keep skill ratings at scale. If it does, players will not only end up getting their own skill rating relative to the wider community, but rather begin to learn what affects their skill rating over time.
In the shorter term, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 its Squid Game crossover is about to launch, incl a controversial premium event in the first of the series.
Wesley is IGN’s UK News Editor. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
