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Activision finally addresses CoD’s controversial ‘shadowban’ system, updates to anti-cheat ahead of season 3 in BO6 and Warzone
Call of Duty's season three for Black Ops 6 and Warzone begins next week, and Activision wants its players to know that it has been ramping up security measures to deal with cheaters ruining the experience for everyone. With over 228,000 accounts banned and over 20 cheat makers and "dozens" of cheat resellers put "out of business," Activision says it's "not slowing down" in its efforts to keep the game fair and fun for everyone, even if it means continuing to flex its money muscles and utilize the law to shut cheats down at the source. Image via Activision As far as season three, kicking off next week with new content for BO6 multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone's return to Verdansk, there are some newly announced improvements to RICOCHET Anti-Cheat that should hopefully continue to mitigate the issue. But the company says it can't even talk about some of them. "As an additional layer to existing anti-cheat processes, we’re launching brand-new systems in season three," Activision said. "For security reasons, we can’t give away too many details; however, we will publish another RICOCHET Progress Report in the release window of Season Three Reloaded to detail results from next week’s update. Several of our current systems are getting big updates this season, too, including our aim bot detections and the Machine Learning system that analyzes game replays to identify suspicious gameplay for human enforcement." One new feature it can detail, though, is UI updates on the killcam, which will show more information about how you were taken down. For example, the killcam will now show the list of attackers who damaged you (along with their username, damage numbers, and hits), whether or not you were affected by a live ping (as opposed to being seen via a wallhack or some other cheat) or UAV, and if firing your weapon revealed you on the minimap. Shockingly, Activision also addressed the highly controversial "shadowban" system, which is known internally at the company as "Limited Matchmaking." Players are sometimes placed into "limited" lobbies if their account or play style has been flagged as suspicious. "Limited Matchmaking is a necessary part of the system as an immediate reaction to the detection of suspicious activity," Activision said. "LMM allows accounts to continue to play matches online in a separate pool from standard matchmaking as our team examines and collects all evidence necessary for further action – if needed. Being placed in Limited Matchmaking doesn’t signal someone is a confirmed cheater but an alarm was raised that requires examination. There are several ways an alarm could be tripped, including a major change in an account’s behavior or if a brand-new account is dropping improbable stats, to name a few." Image via Activision Activision says accounts in LMM make up "less than 0.15 percent of the entire player population" in BO6 and Warzone, but partying up with players who are affected by it can "expand the overall pool." And although many players believe being "spam reported" will get them into LMM lobbies, Activision says this is not the case. "Whether it’s in-game or if a cheat developer creates a hack to submit 10,000 reports, spam reporting does nothing," Activision said. "Subsequent reports provide no additional information – you already told us someone seems fishy, submitting the same report again doesn’t add more detail. In fact, spamming reports – beyond Malicious Reporting being against our policy – reduces the trust we have in future reports from an account and may result in punitive measures." CoD's season three begins next week on April 2, and Warzone's new Verdansk update will be live on April 3 after 24 hours of downtime for the BR mode. The post Activision finally addresses CoD’s controversial ‘shadowban’ system, updates to anti-cheat ahead of season 3 in BO6 and Warzone appeared first on Destructoid.
Call of Duty's season three for Black Ops 6 and Warzone begins next week, and Activision wants its players to know that it has been ramping up security measures to deal with cheaters ruining the experience for everyone.
With over 228,000 accounts banned and over 20 cheat makers and "dozens" of cheat resellers put "out of business," Activision says it's "not slowing down" in its efforts to keep the game fair and fun for everyone, even if it means continuing to flex its money muscles and utilize the law to shut cheats down at the source.
As far as season three, kicking off next week with new content for BO6 multiplayer, Zombies, and Warzone's return to Verdansk, there are some newly announced improvements to RICOCHET Anti-Cheat that should hopefully continue to mitigate the issue. But the company says it can't even talk about some of them.
"As an additional layer to existing anti-cheat processes, we’re launching brand-new systems in season three," Activision said. "For security reasons, we can’t give away too many details; however, we will publish another RICOCHET Progress Report in the release window of Season Three Reloaded to detail results from next week’s update. Several of our current systems are getting big updates this season, too, including our aim bot detections and the Machine Learning system that analyzes game replays to identify suspicious gameplay for human enforcement."
One new feature it can detail, though, is UI updates on the killcam, which will show more information about how you were taken down. For example, the killcam will now show the list of attackers who damaged you (along with their username, damage numbers, and hits), whether or not you were affected by a live ping (as opposed to being seen via a wallhack or some other cheat) or UAV, and if firing your weapon revealed you on the minimap.
Shockingly, Activision also addressed the highly controversial "shadowban" system, which is known internally at the company as "Limited Matchmaking." Players are sometimes placed into "limited" lobbies if their account or play style has been flagged as suspicious.
"Limited Matchmaking is a necessary part of the system as an immediate reaction to the detection of suspicious activity," Activision said. "LMM allows accounts to continue to play matches online in a separate pool from standard matchmaking as our team examines and collects all evidence necessary for further action – if needed. Being placed in Limited Matchmaking doesn’t signal someone is a confirmed cheater but an alarm was raised that requires examination. There are several ways an alarm could be tripped, including a major change in an account’s behavior or if a brand-new account is dropping improbable stats, to name a few."
Activision says accounts in LMM make up "less than 0.15 percent of the entire player population" in BO6 and Warzone, but partying up with players who are affected by it can "expand the overall pool." And although many players believe being "spam reported" will get them into LMM lobbies, Activision says this is not the case.
"Whether it’s in-game or if a cheat developer creates a hack to submit 10,000 reports, spam reporting does nothing," Activision said. "Subsequent reports provide no additional information – you already told us someone seems fishy, submitting the same report again doesn’t add more detail. In fact, spamming reports – beyond Malicious Reporting being against our policy – reduces the trust we have in future reports from an account and may result in punitive measures."
CoD's season three begins next week on April 2, and Warzone's new Verdansk update will be live on April 3 after 24 hours of downtime for the BR mode.
The post Activision finally addresses CoD’s controversial ‘shadowban’ system, updates to anti-cheat ahead of season 3 in BO6 and Warzone appeared first on Destructoid.
