Warzone players outraged as stats change protects hackers & SBMM abuse
ActivisionCall of Duty: Warzone players have aired their concerns with the recent changes making profile stats private following the companion app drama, with some players pointing out that the change helps cheaters hide from punishment.
Like many other multiplayer games, Warzone has had its issues with both hackers and skill-based matchmaking ruining the experience for some players.
While they’ve both always been an annoyance, players recently discovered that some were using an app from the CoDTracker site, and another called ‘SBMMWarzone’, that helped them pick and choose their lobbies. These apps were, initially, meant to be used to root out cheaters, but it backfired and SBMM abuse became the primary use.
Changes were made to the app to help quell the abuse, and Activision even made every Warzone account private so that the data couldn’t reach similar apps. However, that has caused annoyance as well.
Activision / TreyarchCoD YouTuber Drift0r pointed out that, given how annoying the new opt-in process is to share Warzone stats – and that it isn’t mandatory, either – players will simply choose to stay hidden.
“Some of them (pro players and record holders) might not want to opt-in, or like me, might not be able too or it might take a while, which means that if anybody is cheating at a high level, either to get YouTube content or to stream tournaments, they can just opt out of all this and keep the cheating private,” he said.
The YouTuber noted that, while Activision might have the data on their end and could root out cheaters, it makes it harder for the community to assist them in that fight.
Other players backed up Drift0r’s concerns about the cheating and SBMM abuse, with some offering up ideas for future changes.
“They’ll literally do everything except just tone down SBMM, which would mitigate all these other issues,” said one player. “There’s an elephant in the room and its name is cheating. Activision just reopened the highway for cheating. Shameful,” added another.
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Others, though, took a different slant, saying: “This officially ruined the game for me. I liked having public stats. It gave me something to work towards in improving… now what’s the point since no one can see them and I have nothing to compare mine to.”
As Drift0r notes, it could become a case where the opt-in process is made mandatory in the future, as it seems to a situation that is majorly in flux – given that there have been two changes in quick succession.
It could also be the case that Activision decides to not do anything else, and this is their final move. Though, given the outrage from the community, that seems unlikely.