Modern Warfare’s shocking servers plague $250,000 tournament

A recent Modern Warfare tournament grouped together an abundance of popular streamers and had them compete for a massive $250,000 prize pool. Unfortunately, the event was bogged down by a number of issues stemming from the custom game servers in Infinity Ward’s latest.

Currently, one of the biggest talking points in the Call of Duty community is the shockingly poor refresh rate in Modern Warfare’s custom game lobbies.

With games set to a tremendously low 12hz tick rate, it means that bullets can often miss and the timing of movement can be offset from another perspective. 

A number of popular personalities and Call of Duty icons such as Shaun ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson and Tyler ‘TeePee’ Polchow recently banded together and competed for a whopping $250,000 in a first of its kind Modern Warfare Streamer Invitational.

Walking away in first place and taking home $100,000, TeePee’s team stormed through the competition. However, that’s not to say the victory came without its fair share of unbelievable setbacks, in large part due to the incredibly frustrating tick rate of custom game servers.

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Throughout a game of Search and Destroy on Arklov Peak, Teepee’s team was up two rounds to one. However, some atrocious luck saw him booted from the fourth round extremely early.

On his screen, the former pro player had made it to safety behind some nearby cover. Subsequently being sniped through a thick slab of cement, he was left stunned.

Revealing the inconsistencies that plague Modern Warfare due to the low refresh rate, the opposing kill-cam showed TeePee well out from cover as the game had not updated in time from the sniper’s perspective.

Another similarly egregious example can be seen throughout a Domination match on Rammaza wherein, a player seemingly teleported through thin air and gained the upper hand in a ridiculous gunfight. 

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Having gone prone on the ground in anticipation of a flanker, TeePee was fully prepared to gun down anyone who approached. Unfortunately the 12hz tick rate was not on his side as his opponent dashed across the gap and returned fire before the stream team leader could even comprehend the maneuver. 

Some of the game’s pros have come out to joke about the moment, which shocked TeePee.

“Welcome to MW” Atlanta FaZe’s Chris ‘Simp’ Lehr said in response to the clip, indicating that this kind of inexplicable gameplay is what professional players have had to deal with since the launch of Modern Warfare.

All TeePee could muster was a prayer for all of the pro players who will have to deal with this in the upcoming Call of Duty League (CDL).

While these were just a few of the issues that plagued the winning team of the recent $250,000 event, the dawn of CDL is right around the corner and Infinity Ward has yet to address evident server shortcomings. 

There’s no telling whether custom games will be changed for the better once franchise teams get on the road for a busy 2020 schedule. CDL action is set to kick off on January 24 with first-round matchups taking place in Minnesota, giving Infinity Ward just a few weeks to brush up on their custom game servers.