Cheaters have been rampant in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone following the Season 1 integration, despite RICOCHET anti-cheat. Activision has previously shared that a data outage negatively affected the anti-cheat software's mitigation efforts following the launch of Season 1 content for Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone. In a recent blog post, TeamRICOCHET is now admitting that while anti-cheat systems "performed well" during Black Ops 6's launch, the team "did not hit the mark for integration of RICOCHET Anti-Cheat at the launch of Season 1 — particularly for Ranked Play."
Activision's TeamRICOCHET, the developers behind Call of Duty's proprietary anti-cheat software, has said that 19,000 new account bans primarily targeting cheaters in Ranked Play modes went out during Season 1. The team is also ramping up ban waves hourly to keep up with the increased number of suspicious accounts being processed, caught up by its newly rejuvenated detection methods.
Cheating has become so commonplace in Call of Duty Warzone and Black Ops 6's playlists that TeamRICOCHET has had to increase the size of its human moderation team. The team has also expanded its AI-powered Replay Investigation render farm to keep up with reports of suspicious activity. Further updates to RICOCHET anti-cheat, the kernel-level driver developed in-house for Call of Duty, and the AI systems that support it are expected to help pinpoint disruptive players before they even make it into the game. New client and server-side detection techniques are planned for Black Ops 6 and Warzone Seasons 2 and 3.
"While we have made progress, we know more needs to be done, and we’re eager to share details of our planned major updates coming in the new year," TeamRICOCHET staff wrote.
Shadowbans, spam reporting, and Ricochet
The announcement of increased moderation and anti-cheat mitigation activity has been met with mixed responses from Call of Duty players on social media. Activision has a history of being opaque when it comes to behind-the-scenes details on Call of Duty. However, in recent years, there has been more communication with regard to RICOCHET anti-cheat. TeamRICOCHET is still obligated to keep certain elements of cheat mitigation close to its chest to prevent disruptive players from finding workarounds.
That opaqueness has spurred the community to spin up conspiracy theories about anti-cheat tactics, most notably the ramifications for players who are accused of cheating. TeamRICOCHET has confirmed that players who are suspected of cheating can find themselves in limited matchmaking. This confirmation has led some players to believe any time they encounter obvious cheaters or experience high latency that they have been a victim of spam reporting.
However, Activision and TeamRICOCHET have confirmed in previous reports on cheat mitigation tactics that spam reports bear minimal weight in the detection process. Reporting players suspected of cheating is an important tool for catching players who have found ways around other detection tools. The act of spam reporting an opponent is nothing new, though. Thus, TeamRICOCHET already has methods that limit sore losers from effectively enacting a shadowban via false reports alone.
Initial waves of cheat mitigation are more likely to be enforced because of AI detection rather than false reporting or human intervention, and speed of detection is one of the primary purposes of using AI detection systems. The high latency these players are encounter is more likely a result of Black Ops 6 and Warzone's servers, which have seen a decline in stability following Season 1's launch.
How to check for limited matchmaking and bans in Call of Duty: Warzone or Black Ops 6
A shadow ban because of spam reports may be unlikely, but that doesn't mean that you can't accidentally trigger limited matchmaking or find yourself on the wrong side of enforcement measures. Accidents happen, and even with AI detection and human moderation, some players do get caught up in mitigation. Early in Modern Warfare 3 (2023)'s life cycle, RICOCHET anti-cheat was issuing bans to PC players who had software for controlling RGB installed. RICOCHET has been a living anti-cheat that has grown and changed significantly since its earliest days, but the software certainly still has room to grow.
If you suspect you've been hit with limited matchmaking or a full ban, you can check the status of your account by visiting Activision's support page and logging in to check the status of your account. Once logged in, you can navigate to the Ban Appeal page to submit a ticket if a ban is currently in place.
For those of us who haven't been hit with shadowbans, maybe we're just not playing hard enough. Take a look at these controller settings you can change to help you play Black Ops 6 better, or find out how to earn XP faster with this one loadout. That way, you don't need to cheat with an unlock tool to get through the prestige grind. Or, discover how playing hardcore multiplayer can make you better at COD.
