TeamRICOCHET unveils plan to use machine learning in its effort to ramp up Call of Duty anti-cheat efforts

In a current online article, Call of Duty’s TeamRICOCHET has revealed their strategies for combating cheaters before the release of Season 3 for Black Ops 6 and Warzone. One method they plan to use is machine learning in their anti-cheat initiatives.

In a more conversational style, you could say: Cheating and Call of Duty have always been like two peas in a pod, but Activision and their TeamRICOCHET team have spent years perfecting an anti-cheat system at the core level for their beloved first-person shooter series.

After Modern Warfare 3’s final season, RICOCHET anti-cheat appeared to be functioning smoothly. But when Season 1 for Black Ops 6 was released and integrated with Warzone, a data outage caused significant flaws in the game’s cheating prevention mechanisms.

As the game continued, those cracks would just become larger. Ultimately, the Call of Duty team found themselves needing to postpone material planned for Season 2 in order to focus on improving the game first, before adding anything new to it.

Activision has been taking a firm stance against cheat service providers by sending out cease and desist orders. This move has led to over 20 different cheating platforms halting their services since the release of Black Ops 6. Additionally, TeamRICOCHET has recently announced new anti-cheat strategies that will be implemented in Season 3 and beyond, along with the potential for legal action against those who provide cheats.

Bolstering security for Season 3

In Call of Duty, the anti-cheat group encounters a distinct predicament. The game’s user base, often exposed to the troublesome actions of cheaters, seeks assurance that the team has an effective anti-cheat solution. Yet, the developers feel bound to maintain secrecy about their cheat countermeasures to prevent cheat distributors from finding ways around those defenses.

During the post-release phase of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Sledgehammer Games adopted a very distinctive approach to transparency with their RICOCHET anti-cheat system. They frequently disclosed new strategies for countering cheating, enabling players who shared gameplay videos showing suspicious in-game activities to inadvertently expose themselves as using unauthorized software or hacks.

I noticed an interesting phenomenon in Call of Duty: Warzone, where the SPLAT mechanic from Modern Warfare 3 seemed to be making a return. It appeared that players who were found cheating would suddenly find their parachutes malfunctioning, leading them to meet an untimely end. They took to social media to express their frustrations about this unexpected turn of events.

Treyarch has chosen to keep quiet about any measures they’ve implemented (if there are any) for Warzone and Black Ops 6, but they did reveal that over 228,000 cheaters have been permanently banned from the two games since November 2024. The RICOCHET team also announced that a whopping 23% of these banned cheaters were detected using RICOCHET strategies even before they played their first game.

In the upcoming Season 3, the developers have promised further system upgrades. These improvements encompass advanced aim bot detection mechanisms and employing machine learning to scrutinize game replays. Any potential cheating flagged by the AI algorithm will undergo manual verification by human moderators before any disciplinary actions are taken.

In Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, the application of machine learning and AI for identifying troublemakers isn’t a novel concept. Activision teamed up with Modulate as early as Modern Warfare 3’s launch in 2023, employing AI and machine learning to screen disruptive chat. This technology has been consistently used since the release of Black Ops 6 in 2024 and remains functional today.

Shadowbans and spam reports

Absolutely, in discussions about anti-cheat measures and handling troublesome players, the concept often surfaces known as “shadow bans.” This term, derived from the gaming community, refers to a restricted matchmaking feature employed by the Call of Duty developers to combat cheating activities.

When anti-cheat systems identify potential fraudulent behavior from a gamer, they automatically move that player into an isolated pool rather than the regular matchmaking queue. This segregation enables the system to gather more information about any potential cheating activities the player might be involved in.

Team RICOCHET explains that restrictive matchmaking might occur when a player’s account behavior undergoes a significant shift or a fresh account accumulates what they term “unusual statistics.” Being in the same party as a player who is presumed to be engaging in questionable gameplay can also lead to being placed in restricted matchmaking, even if you haven’t been accused of cheating.

Even though they have advanced AI algorithms, Call of Duty’s moderation team primarily depends on player reports to identify suspicious users. This has sparked widespread conjecture among the community that a larger number of players than expected might be stuck in limited matchmaking due to excessive report spamming by upset teams of losers.

Team RICOCHET shares that only about 0.15% of all Black Ops 6 and Warzone players encounter a “shadowban” at any point. To address this issue, they have introduced new strategies to expedite the player review process. This will help free those who were mistakenly caught in limited matchmaking and return them to the regular player pool more quickly.

The team has reiterated their stance: Reports of spam from disappointed players will not lead to a permanent ban for users in the Call of Duty community. For several years, such actions have violated the game’s terms of service. However, the team insists that these reports do not trigger any player enforcement actions.

Identifying potentially unfair players is crucial in maintaining fair gameplay, and with the arrival of Season 3 in Call of Duty, players can anticipate the introduction of a new Death Recap Widget and enhanced KillCams to further strengthen the anti-cheat measures.

From now on, death recap widgets will provide additional details, helping to clarify why a player may have lost a gunfight. Starting with Season 3, these widgets will display extra information about the events that transpired.

List of attackers who dealt damage with their username, weapon, damage, and hits
Affected by Live Ping: If the enemy had you pinged via line-of-sight
Affected by UAV: If the enemy had you pinged on the minimap via UAV, UAV Tower, or Advanced UAV
Affected by Unsuppressed Weapon: When firing your weapon revealed your location on the minimap to nearby enemies

As the third season unfolds, further details about the influences of game aspects such as weapons, ability combos, ongoing missions, bonuses, and others will be incorporated into the death summary panel and replay modes. This enhancement helps clarify doubts before you decide to submit a report.

Adjusting Ranked Play for Season 3

Call of Duty’s Season 2 attempts to reduce cheating in their Ranked playlists, which include both Black Ops 6 and Warzone, were more like a temporary fix for a deeper problem. In response to the community’s requests, the developers implemented an option for players to disable cross-play between consoles and PC within Ranked playlists.

Although it’s statistically more common for PC players to engage in unfair behavior, separating the platforms didn’t significantly reduce cheating. Instead, it seems that the separation might have placed many non-cheating PC players (alongside console players they were grouped with) into seemingly endless small matchmaking pools.

In Season 3, consoles may choose to exclude themselves from cross-play, but Team RICOCHET appears to be implementing measures to minimize aggravating interactions. Losing a game to a cheater in ranked matches can hinder progress, resulting in players forfeiting the Skill Rating they invested as an entrance fee for that particular match.

To counteract this issue, Treyarch is implementing a system for retroactively adjusting Skill Ratings. If a cheater is identified and banned, players they recently beat in Ranked Play matches will be given back the Skill Rating points they lost in those games. This system will currently reimburse Skill Rating points for matches that occurred within the past two weeks of the offending player’s ban.

In the development of Call of Duty, they are adopting a strategy similar to “like attracts like” for combating cheats. If you often team up with a player who frequently uses cheat software, you might find a decrease in your Skill Ranking too. Any victories gained alongside suspected cheaters could potentially be removed from your account at a later time.

In other words, before Season 3 starts on April 3, Treyarch plans to reset the Ranked play leaderboards so that everyone gets a fair and new beginning in Season 3.

2025-03-31 12:10

Bolstering security for Season 3

Shadowbans and spam reports

Adjusting Ranked Play for Season 3

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