Summary
Ahead of the launch ofCall of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Season 2 content,ActivisionandTreyarchshared anupdate with the community on the Call of Duty Blog. Beyond detailingthe long-awaited ability for console players to turn off crossplay, the team also provided a status update on its RICHOCHET anti-cheat initiatives.
Perhaps most noteworthy is the fact that, since the launch of Black Ops 6’s ranked play, over 136,000 accounts have been banned for cheating. That figure is up fromthe 19,000 accounts that were reported to be banned in November.
In an effort to combat cheaters,Treyarch outlined in November, that in order to participate in ranked play, a gamer must win 50 match-made standard multiplayer matches. That was seemingly done to prevent private lobby boosting. However, it appears that regardless of its lengthy requirements, cheaters are still finding their way into games.
The War Against Cheaters Isn’t Over
The blog post goes on to list some of the updated mechanisms in place used to detect bad actors, including behavioral systems centered around detecting aim botting, along with hardware identifiers. Additionally, once a cheater is banned, the system will detect the other accounts it has partied up with and raise internal flags for potential collaborators.
One thing the blog does make clear is that it will not give into an IP-based banning system. “We do not utilize IP-based bans for anti-cheat because they tend to take action against entire groups within a range that aren’t problematic.” For example, an entire college campus could see itself banned for a single bad actor, which is what the company wants to avoid.
In short, all of this is an effort to keep the game as balanced and fun as possible.
“We’re not slowing down in our mission to shut down cheaters whose only mission is to ruin the fun for everyone else, and we’re confident that the combination of the updates above, as well as ongoing improvements to our detection systems and Activision’s continued legal actions against illegal cheat sellers, will provide a demonstrably healthier gameplay experience going forward,” a statement read.
Moving forward, new kernel updates and improved detection systems will be implemented. Eventually, a new tech system meant to authenticate legitimate competitors from cheaters will come in Season 3. Understandably, those details will not be divulged in order to keep cheat developers from finding exploits. Still, only time will tell if these changes have made an impact, or if they’re just a minor speedbump for bad actors.
