At first I thought my teammate was exaggerating. How in the world are there cheaters in beta already? But later I saw a Eurogamer article noting the presence of cheaters in the beta, and a tweet from Activision stating that they were going to take “live action” against players who use cheats. All this despite Activision releasing its anti-cheat software Ricochet last year with the release of “Call of Duty: Vanguard”. As much as Activision says Ricochet works, videos on social media showing cheats during the week of the beta seem to indicate it’s not working well enough.
Tomorrow we start live action against cheaters and hackers in beta matches.
— Infinity Ward (@InfinityWard) September 24, 2022
The continued presence of cheaters is frustrating for players, and should be even more so for the game’s developers, as it will affect many of the tweaks and fine-tuning they’ve done around the upcoming “Modern Warfare II” and “Warzone 2.0.” threatens to undermine. When playing the beta, those changes were welcome, making the game more realistic and less arcade-like; but if cheaters invade the player base again, those changes will be largely undone.
It’s not entirely clear why the cheats worked during the beta, partly because Activision won’t say if Ricochet was on during the beta. (The Washington Post asked; the company did not answer). It’s possible that the developers didn’t take full advantage of Ricochet, if at all, using the beta as a sort of honey pot to learn about previously unknown doors to their software that were exploited by the cheats. It’s equally possible that the developer’s ongoing play of whack-a-mole continues, with the cheaters winning this final round.
What is clear is that Activision sees this as a multifront engagement. This week, gaming news site Charlie Intel reported that Activision had escalated its lawsuit against popular cheat seller EngineOwning, demanding all revenue generated from the sale of its cheats. Whatever tactic proves effective, it’s imperative that cheating is banned from the community as it threatens to spoil some of the biggest changes in the latest version of Call of Duty.
From the beta of “Modern Warfare II” and watching streamers play the alpha of “Warzone 2.0” during the Call of Duty: Next event, it certainly looks like the developers planned to fill the skill gap between the cracked sweats. of the game and the average players. These changes are most noticeable in the exercise department. In the most recent versions of Call of Duty, top players sprinted across the map, using the slide canceling mechanism to replenish the time their character can sprint.
Other favorite tactics include jumping through corners or dropshot (moving forward while firing a weapon) to make it harder for opponents to hit them. These were very effective tactics as there were no real penalties for moving in a very unrealistic way. (Obviously, split-second sliding doesn’t replenish anyone’s stamina in real life.)
Such moves in “Modern Warfare II”, which shares its game engine with “Warzone 2.0”, now come with a noticeable penalty. If you dropshot now, it will take you a while to shoot, and even longer to aim your sights for better accuracy. Firing after a full sprint also takes more time. Slide cancellation has been completely eliminated from the game, and player footsteps register much louder (and more precisely in terms of directional audio) as someone runs around the map at full speed.
These are welcome developments, especially the more acute audio, which is light-years better than the one in “Warzone”, where it’s nearly impossible to tell if an enemy is running next to you, above or below you (not to mention the many times a helicopter somehow surreptitiously tore me apart from behind without hearing more than the muffled hum of its rotors). The sound was excellent in the beta.
Likewise, the larger modes like Ground War and Invasion, which incorporated vehicles – and, for Invasion, AI soldiers – felt more sophisticated than “Modern Warfare” in 2019. The maps shown were a nice mix of classic three-lane models with plenty of unique perches and positions of power to make them distinctive and interesting.
The beta received a lot of criticism from skilled players who were used to a game aimed directly at a fast and aggressive playstyle, but the more realistic mechanics seem fine to me, and should benefit the range of average players who make up the majority of Call. of Duty players. In a game that bills itself as tactical, you shouldn’t be rewarded for overrunning a room full of enemies just because you’re twitching and moving like a mongoose drinking a cocktail of G-Fuel, Red Bull for the past hour. and mountain dew. Real people don’t jump off a slide or hit headshots. Faster players will always have better reflexes than your average 40-year-old playing Call of Duty; they also don’t need to be helped by unrealistic motion mechanics.
Like those changes or not, the net effect is that these new tunings will – somewhat – curb the sweaty players, as well as the possibilities for them to get their favorite custom weapons in “Warzone 2.0” with the elimination of loadout drops . (In the alpha, players had to buy their equipment pistol at a buying station.) But it’s all for nothing if cheaters and hackers can run rampant across the map.
With aimbot software, even basic level weapons become impossibly accurate and wallhacks give an informational advantage that is far more accurate than any audio signal. And while it’s annoying to confront cheaters with those mods in a standard multiplayer lobby, it’s much, much worse when you run into them towards the end of a round of Battle Royale, which can take nearly 30 minutes from start to finish. If you find a cheater in the last circle a few times, players may decide to play another BR title. I know I would.
Developers trying to explain cheaters are essentially trying to hit a moving target. Once they eliminate one hack, another will probably pop up somewhere. Still, it’s a problem the developers of Call of Duty need to solve, and soon, if they don’t want all their hard work on “Modern Wafare II” and “Warzone 2.0” to be undermined by a legion of cheaters.
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