Continuing, the biggest source of confusion was the compatibility of different matchmaking styles with different playlists. The game developers through a taxpayer’s official account updated the community about the situation, accompanied by showing what they intend to do with the matchmaking system via their mappings. A clear delineation between “standard” and “open” playlists was made, resulting in the inference that the elimination of SBMM was not so straightforward after all. A massive contradiction arose since many players were already pre-calling the absolute return of traditional Call of Duty-style pairing.
This delineation indeed of standard and open playlists is the source of the confusion for the replies are coming in like, you souldn’t be surprised if somebody pre-ordered before you could even say the very word “canceled”
One of the players with the moniker lb-heartless lit-ter-ally to proceed to share his righteous indignation stating: “PRE-ORDER CANCELED AND REFUND GIVING. YOU BUNCH OF LIARS.” Moreover, he accompanied his angry post with a plethora of furious emojis. The guy did not stop there but also sent a tweet repeating “SBMM LIAR LIAR LIAR” non-stop. Wow! That person seems really furious about the whole issue.
Moreover, it is not just one person who emits this sentiment, rather, it seems that the whole community thinks that way. Austin tweeted: “What a scummy move by Activision. I knew it was too good to be true when they said it was all going to be open matchmaking as ‘default’!” Also, another user, Alex, straightforwardly wrote: “Canceled preorder thx” with a praying hands emoji, which in fact sounds a bit sarcastic due to the circumstances.
The kernel of the issue seems to be that the players feel that Treyarch and Activision were somewhat duplicitous about SBMM in the full game. Ronst0ppab66012 expressed the bewilderment in a tweet: “But a recent post stated it will be the default…not that there will be a separate playlist for this…confused.” And to be honest? The same. One can detect some mixed messages going around here.
On the flip side, some players have already begun to predict the future with skepticism. EL JACKAL posted: “Come on. Do away with SBMM completely or just don’t. We know what you’re gonna do. This totally just killed it for me. SBMM back by season 2.” They seem to already have the developers’ plan—a gradual increase of the skill-based matchmaking as the game progresses—which has been the case with some previous titles.
The SBMM issue has long been contentious in the Call of Duty community, with players divided between those who want more casual connection-based matches and those who prefer playing against equally skilled players. However, this latest revelation has swung the scales heavily in the direction of frustration, as many consider it to be the opposite of the promise made to them.
Nonetheless, amid all this SBMM stuff, there is a player, Ayas “Petergobrrr” Sarwar, who always asks for specific maps and features in his replies. For instance, he is just begging the developers to bring back “kino 2” and “Nacht 2” as survival maps, requesting specific HUD changes from the campaign to be filled in zombies, and begging for a bunch of classic weapons to be added. While everyone else is sweating the matchmaking systems, this chap is getting his wishes granted. The contradiction is indeed very funny.
What is more, there is this other topic that people are having a discussion on whether kids should be allowed to play Black Ops 7 at all. Daniel Barnhardt was rebuking a person by saying: “First of all, your five-year-old should not be playing call of duty in the first place; it has a rating for a reason. It is rated M for mature. I have kids too, but I would never let them play call of duty. You are a bad parent if you let your kid play rated M games, sorry but that’s a fact.” which is a valid point but maybe it is not the most suitable timing. Everybody is talking about SBMM and this man is criticizing parents in the comments.
What is really stunning is how this quickly turned from the anticipation of PlayStation to mass disappointment. The game is still not released but people have started to cancel their pre-orders, while some say that they are switching over to Battlefield. OfficialSpeedz tweeted, “Never trusting @Activision again. I don’t know why I am so surprised by this move; we keep falling for this stuff. I am done with COD and will stick to Xbox,” which is—ouch.
