Call of Duty bans more than 14,000 cheaters in 24 hours

[Jimmy2x]

Cutting corners: Hacking and cheating have long plagued multiplayer Call of Duty titles. To level the playing field and actively combat these issues, Activision released the Ricochet anti-cheat system in 2021, targeting not only the cheaters but also the developers of cheat engines that compromise the gaming experience. Just this past weekend, the Call of Duty team announced another wave of bans aimed at dishonest players, bolstering the hopes of fans that fair play may soon be possible.

On Friday, Call of Duty's official update account, @CODUpdates, announced the team's most recent account ban wave, aimed at players using hacks, cheats, and exploits that undermine the game's experience. According to the announcement, over 14,000 accounts were successfully targeted and banned within 24 hours. Online discourse following the ban suggests that the wave may have effectively targeted cheat engines from providers such as InterWebz and EngineOwning.

ð¡ #MWII #Warzone

In the last 24 hours, new detections directly targeting cheat developers at the source has led to over 14,000 account bans for cheating and hacking in Modern Warfare II and Warzone.

– Call of Duty Updates (@CODUpdates) July 28, 2023

The Ricochet anti-cheat system has often adopted a unique, yet highly effective, approach to identify and counteract players using available cheat engines. Rather than severing connections and banning accounts immediately upon detection, the system engages cheaters with countermeasures designed to negate any unfair advantages.

Recent strategies include damage shields that nullify a cheating player's damage output, obstructing the view of non-cheating players from cheating players, and even disarming the cheater, making them nothing more than a sitting duck for the players they sought to terrorize.

An innovative "hallucination" feature was also introduced recently to distract cheaters with fake player targets while gathering data. According to Activision, these hallucinations place specially flagged decoy characters around the game, only visible to cheaters identified by the Ricochet system. This feature gives developers the ability to deploy flagged decoys both as a deterrent for identified cheaters and as a method to detect suspicious players.

The system also extends its reach to hardware-based cheats. Earlier this year, the Call of Duty team announced the inclusion of third-party hardware detections in the Ricochet system, targeting users employing hardware-based devices such as the Cronus ZEN and XIM.

While many of these measures may seem like trolling, they allow the Call of Duty and Ricochet development teams to gather invaluable information for analysis and future anti-cheat development while discouraging the use of cheat engines. This continuous stream of real-time data helps refine anti-cheat measures against ongoing exploits, eroding the undue advantage that cheaters have enjoyed for far too long.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99594-call-duty-bans-more-than-14000-cheaters-24.html

 

[PEnnn]

"Recent strategies include damage shields that nullify a cheating player's damage output, obstructing the view of non-cheating players from cheating players, and even disarming the cheater, making them nothing more than a sitting duck for the players they sought to terrorize."

This is hilarious!!

I wish they filmed this and posted it somewhere, People would pay good money to see those imbeciles being slaughtered in their own game!!

 

[TomSEA]

In the meantime 14,000 more cheaters are playing with different hacks. Except for the Titanfall series which seemed pretty clean, I stopped playing online shooters years ago because of the cheats. Simply no point in playing with that going on.

 

[Prosercunus]

"An innovative "hallucination" feature was also introduced recently to distract cheaters with fake player targets while gathering data. According to Activision, these hallucinations place specially flagged decoy characters around the game, only visible to cheaters identified by the Ricochet system."

This happened to me about a month ago. I have never cheated in a video game in my life. I have not noticed it happen in quite awhile.

 

[Vanderlinde]

"Recent strategies include damage shields that nullify a cheating player's damage output, obstructing the view of non-cheating players from cheating players, and even disarming the cheater, making them nothing more than a sitting duck for the players they sought to terrorize."

This is hilarious!!

I wish they filmed this and posted it somewhere, People would pay good money to see those imbeciles being slaughtered in their own game!!

This dude, lmao.

 

[texasrattler]

"Recent strategies include damage shields that nullify a cheating player's damage output, obstructing the view of non-cheating players from cheating players, and even disarming the cheater, making them nothing more than a sitting duck for the players they sought to terrorize."

This is hilarious!!

I wish they filmed this and posted it somewhere, People would pay good money to see those imbeciles being slaughtered in their own game!!

Legally I don't think they can. They could be sued. Which is why they don't go around shaming or letting other players know what happened to the player they reported.

 

[m3tavision]

Cheating was getting bad these last two seasons in COD, but no where as bad as it was in Verdansk. With the new ranking system, it was getting worse and worse...

SO glad they finally dropped another banhammer....


Ricochet has been really good, but I suspect Activision has been timid using it, for the fear of reprisal on someone claiming they are NOT hacking/cheating. I am glad Ricochet packet sniffs and identifies the software used.

IMO, cheaters should loose a finger if they are caught cheating. You basically have 9 chances to get your life strait...

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Be interesting to see the demographic breakdown of whoes cheating.

 

[Uncle Al]

Always great to get rid of the cheaters ... just wish it worked in real life too!!!

 

[MaestroIT]

What do other games developers do? I bought GTA V just last year and wanted to play online but it is impossible: new player with no good items gets killed immediately. Are there caterers in GTA? Seems impossible that every online session is just clean play

 

[UdyrL]

What do other games developers do? I bought GTA V just last year and wanted to play online but it is impossible: new player with no good items gets killed immediately. Are there caterers in GTA? Seems impossible that every online session is just clean play

You said it: "new player with no good items gets killed immediately".
You didn't necessarily go against cheaters... you went against paying players.

 

[jason lee]

Cheaters should be shadow banned from playing against the general public and should be matched up with other suspected cheaters, without them knowing.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Legally I don't think they can. They could be sued. Which is why they don't go around shaming or letting other players know what happened to the player they reported.

Legally there is no reason a game developer cannot show footage of the game they own, "shaming" a cheater is not illegal (unless you maybe live in bongistan where hurt feelings are worse then physical violence).

 

[texasrattler]

Legally there is no reason a game developer cannot show footage of the game they own, "shaming" a cheater is not illegal (unless you maybe live in bongistan where hurt feelings are worse then physical violence).

They can be sued though. You can sue for just about thing these days but you can legally sue anyone who shames you.

Legal or not, a lawsuit can happen. May not win but it is possible.

I would assume that's why Activsion and others don't release info on players. Cause they can be legally sued. Sure the person may not win but that also looks bad on Activsion. So, to not deal with any possible lawsuits they don't release any player info.