The latest patch for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 implemented anti-cheating measures to crack down on account ballooning and VPN abuse. Cheating is nothing new for Call to action and other online games and is especially prevalent in online shooters. Activision is partnering with Team Ricochet to reduce cheating incidents by taking preventative measures.
Ricochet and Treyarch will work together to make it more difficult for players to take advantage of account boosts through experience. A breakdown of the new anti-cheat features was posted on Call to action website and discovered by Eurogamer. The measures aim to “combat disruptive behavior” by limiting players to their own regions, detecting AFK players, and trading a level cap for minimum wins.
How Black Ops 6’s new Ricochet feature aims to combat cheaters
Black Ops 6 changes the experience requirement to the match win requirement
Cheating has been around for almost as long as video games have been around, since the 1996 cheating peripheral, the GameShark. Multiplayer and online shooter games are particularly susceptible to cheaters, who often make the game less enjoyable for others. An entire industry has emerged around services that enhance the experience that help players build multiple accounts up to the Ranked Play level.
The new anti-cheating measures aim to make experience grinding more difficult to explore. One way the new approach achieves this is by adjusting ping limits to make it imperative that players only play local matches, as cheaters have been using VPNs to artificially play matchmaking to their advantage. The game now also requires players to “win 50 organized multiplayer matches” to unlock Ranked Play, to ensure that players who make it into Ranked have enough experience to belong there.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is watching you play
Ricochet will signal that players behave in an “unnatural” way
The final measure added to combat cheating in Black Ops 6 The Replay Investigation Tool has been improved. Ricochet will use the 50 matches prior to Ranked mode as a base for players and “a match history to review before an account enters Ranked Play.“Accounts whose behavior changes between first wins and Ranked Play matches will be flagged for investigation.
In other words, Black Ops 6 will now observe players and flag anyone who appears to be behaving out of the ordinary. Hopefully this measure, combined with the rest of the anti-cheat features, will make it much easier for the game to find and stop cheaters before they can enter Ranked Play matches and ruin the experience for others. The anti-cheat system will be released in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 first, and it will arrive Call of Duty: Warzone once Ranked Play launches there as well.
Source: Call to action, Eurogamer