Call of Duty's Ricochet Team just announced some interesting developments in their hunt for cheaters.
One of the announcements sounds like it's going to rock the community.
Another has me scratching my head.
And another has my sus-meter going off.
You had to have heard the news by now, Ricochet's biggest Season 3 announcement was their answer to the Cronus question.
Ricochet is finally taking on the controller cheater crowd with an update that detects the third-party device.
This is a huge W for casual and pro players alike.
Call of Duty has the strongest aim-assist in the first-person shooter market.
If controller players can't win fights against other 'rollers or mouse-and-key players, it truly is a skill issue.
Cronus users are going to get a fair warning in the Call of Duty Dashboard's notification system so it won't be an instant ban — kind of a shame.
At least with non-hardware cheats, you can make the argument that you didn't know the software was on your hard drive when you bought the PC from Craigslist.
How do you accidentally buy a physical device... plug it in... update the firmware... and download scripts...
It should be an instant ban. But Ricochet's solution is a good compromise.
The biggest implication of Cronus detection though, is the Call of Duty influencer question.
It can only be speculated because there's no way Activision would admit to unethical or illegal behavior, but popular CoD streamers are likely on a Ricochet whitelist (allegedly).
This would explain why certain streamers can routinely put up sus gameplay without an iota of negative consequence.
Will streamers like that be put on a Ricochet Cronus detection whitelist?
Here's your answer:
Money talks. So if the whitelist rumor is true, then it's going to be a hard "Yes."
This Richochet Season 3 announcement had me cocking my head to the side.
The Ricochet team told the world that they had, "deployed a new Replay investigation tool to help protect the integrity of Modern Warfare II multiplayer and Warzone 2.0."
Just to jog your memories quickly, do you know how Street Fighter V and Call of Duty Killcams work?
If you think the games record gameplay, you'd be wrong. They record the gameplay data and reconstruct the gameplay moment later.
So if Call of Duty Killcams have been a thing since forever and Ricochet is just now announcing their Replay Investigation Tool, what's been happening to all the cheaters and exploiters we've been reporting for years?
How was the anti-cheat team reviewing players who reached report thresholds in the past?
Whatever the answer is and whatever's going on over at Activision, I hope this tool gives them more power to ban more cheaters.
Like a lot of people, I believe that Activision lies... a lot.
Do you really believe the "3000 developers, 3 years" marketing point?
It doesn't pass the sniff test.
You know what else smelled sus? Ricochet.
It's either not working at all or it's not working to the degree they're ad
