Call of Duty players have started visiting Activision’s privacy page after a YouTuber showed off a method to check their hidden skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) rating.
SBMM has been the hottest topic in the Call of Duty community for years – some say it ruins the experience, others say it helps level the playing field in competitive multiplayer. Highly skilled Call of Duty players often lament that SBMM throws them into what they call “sweaty” lobbies full of similarly talented players. All the while, Activision hid players’ skill levels from them, forcing them to speculate about where they might sit compared to others and how that changes from game to game.
However, a popular Call of Duty YouTuber TheXclusiveAce revealed the method this will allow players to know their skill level in every multiplayer game they have played, starting with 2021’s Vanguard. However, this requires jumping through a few hoops and you will have to wait a while before you get the data.
The method is to go to Activision Privacy Page and submitting a recent request for access to personal data. You’ll need to log in to your Activision account to automatically include the various Call of Duty games, but once you’re done, you can submit your request. IGN has gone through the process and can verify its legality, although you’ll have to wait a day or two for the data to arrive via email.
TheXclusiveAce received his details and, in his video on this topicshowed how huge it is. It shows every multiplayer match in detail, including the mode you’re playing on, the map, the operator and skin you used, and even the execution you had. You can see the number of hits landed in the match, longest streak, damage dealt and received, and, if you’re interested, movement time percentage. Many more data points are included, but the most captivating one is the skill stat.
Thanks to his data, TheXclusiveAce was able to chart his skill level in Black Ops 6, showing how it changed over time. TheXclusiveAce, who will be one of the better Call of Duty multiplayer players compared to the overall player base, had his skill level hovering around 400 during his time on Black Ops 6, although there were occasional dips and spikes.
Unfortunately, this same data doesn’t facilitate players understand how their skill level stacks up against others. It also does not reveal the skill level in the lobby or why a player’s skill level changed from game to game.
However, TheXclusiveAce compared his K/D ratio to his skill rating to try to draw conclusions about SBMM Black Ops 6. From what he can tell, indigent play compared to previous results actually reduces the skill rating, and better play compared to previous results increases skill rating, although both may take some time to kick. TheXclusiveAce suspects that lobby skill ratings influence changes in individual skill ratings; If SBMM expects you to play at a certain level relative to your lobby skill ranking and you don’t meet those expectations, your skill level may drop even if you played a good game.
Last year, Activision gave a somewhat vague explanation of how SBMM works in Call of Duty. Skills are determined by a player’s “overall performance,” Activision says. This includes kills, deaths, wins, losses, as well as mode selection and recent matches as an overall metric across all multiplayer matches. “It’s a seamless measurement that’s constantly updated and responsive to your gameplay,” Activision explained. “Skills are a factor not only in matching players to the right enemies, but also in finding teammates.”
Activision further stated that matchmaking skills mean that all players (regardless of skill level) are more likely to have wins and losses that are more proportionate. “We use player scores to ensure that the gap between the most skilled player in the lobby and the least skilled player in the lobby is not so great that players feel their match is a waste of time,” Activision said.
The question now is whether the Call of Duty community will work together to track skill ratings at scale. If this happens, players will not only finally understand where their skill level is relative to the wider community, but they will begin to learn exactly what influences skill levels to change over time.
In the shorter term, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 has released the Squid Game crossover, which for the first time in the series includes a controversial premium event pass.
Wesley is the UK news editor at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
