Scump says “a lot could go wrong” with CDL switching to PC next season
CDL / Scump - TwitchWith the Call of Duty League switching from console to PC for the 2021 season, at least at the professional level, Chicago Huntsmen’s legendary CoD pro Seth ‘Scump’ Abner has detailed some of the potential issues that could arise.
[jwplayer ESpM1MSj]
The Call of Duty League’s switch from console to PC was inevitable, but that doesn’t mean the transition will be without its faults; one major concern, of course, has been hacking. Maybe not in the competitive scene, but the growing presence of PC in CoD this year (with the addition of cross-play and Warzone) has exposed Activision’s inability to handle the issue on a large scale.
Add in the fact that the CDL’s Challengers circuit and in-game ranked mode(s), for example, will support both console & PC, and suddenly the concern is heightened. And while it’s unlikely that anyone in the pro ranks would cheat, if the 2021 season starts out online, there’s a chance that, at the very least, accusations could start flying around.
Scump was asked about this switch during one of his recent streams and, uncoincidentally, hacking was the first thing he brought up: “The one thing that could go wrong – if there’s hackers, any kind of competitive playlist is chalked. That’s definitely something to worry about.”
“That is going to be very annoying if hackers just run rampant in all the ranked playlists,” he went on. “If there are hackers, it’s chalked. There’s supposed to be anti-cheat in the works? Hopefully, they do a good job with it and hopefully, everything is good.”
The veteran also brought up the potential situations where the gaming rigs experience issues during competitions: “‘PC crash during a tournament is bound to happen,’ more than likely, yeah. There’s a lot of things that could go wrong, definitely a LOT of things that could go wrong.”
There was one positive bit of news that Scump revealed during this discussion: the CDL is working on adding a ‘pause feature’ that would allow them to stop and start matches if need be.
The lack of such a feature really became apparent during the 2020 campaign, especially the CDL Playoffs, when teams like OpTic Gaming LA and London Royal Ravens had players booted offline mid-match.
As a result, since the disconnections occurred too late into the respective Hardpoint games, both teams had to play the round a man down, 4v5, which inevitably led them to lose.
Needless to say, had a pause feature existed, the whole situation could have been avoided. Instead, the CDL was forced to stream all matches with a massive delay so that viewers with ill-intentions couldn’t hit anyone offline.
Call of Duty LeagueUltimately, the Call of Duty League’s switch to PC is a “step in the right direction,” as Scump remarked, but there are definitely potential problems that could stem from the transition. We’ll just have to wait and see.
For more information about the upcoming campaign, make sure to visit our CDL 2021 season hub.