MW3’s “horrible” ranked matchmaking pits bronze team against top 250 players
![Ranked Play game on Terminal in Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3.](https://www.dexerto.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=3840,quality=60,format=auto/https://editors.dexerto.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/01/call-of-duty-mw3-ranked-play-on-terminal.jpg)
MW3 Ranked Play is under fire as several low ranked players are forced to compete against top ranked players, with one player’s full bronze team being put up against four top 250 ranked players.
The MW3 Ranked Play mode was released during the Season 1 reload that came out in January. As one of the most highly-requested game modes, players were excited to get in on the action.
However, as the weeks have passed, MW3 Ranked Play has been under fire from content creators and casual players alike. While previous iterations of the Call of Duty Ranked Play have been less than perfect, MW3 has taken the cake for one of the most broken matchmaking systems.
Without any further news from Sledgehammer Games regarding the Ranked Play system, Reddit posts have begun popping up to discuss matchmaking issues.
MW3 players slam Ranked Play for unbalanced matches
A Reddit user shared a screenshot of a MW3 ranked match featuring a team of Bronze-ranked players facing off against opponents who were all within the top 250. There are eight ranked divisions, which makes this matchup even more confusing.
“I heard matchmaking isn’t even solely based on your Ranked Play rank,” said one user. “It’ll also take into consideration your public match performance. So, if you’re a good player in public matches, then it’ll match you with similarly skilled players right off the rip, regardless of your rank. Bronze players can be matched with Crimson just because the game thinks the skill level between players is ‘even.'”
People responded to this comment with displeasure, some calling the matchmaking system “horrible,” while others wondered if there was some way that reverse boosting was involved that could make the teams so uneven.
“Yeah, I don’t understand the MM for ranked,” said another user under a similar post. “I love ranked. It’s an absolute blast. But you really shouldn’t face outside +/-1. Like Gold should see Plat and Silver. But I think there should be a hidden metric where if you are doing stupid good, you get bumped to a +2-0 to avoid having people that smurf accounts.”
This isn’t an isolated incident, either. While there aren’t too many examples of a full bronze team against top 250s, it isn’t all that uncommon for low ranked players to be against people in Crimson or Iridescent.
No further updates to MW3 Ranked Play have been made since Season 1 was released. However, the game’s second season is on the horizon and may feature some necessary changes to matchmaking with it.