PC Players That Cheat Have Ruined Crossplay
Image Source: https://www.downsights.com/cheaters-rampant-call-of-duty-black-ops-cold-war/After not really having anything that I wanted to write about today, but having just played a thoroughly crapfest set of games on Call of Duty Cold War, I’m fired up and ready to go! 
. Let’s talk about cheaters in CoD. Trust Micro$soft to try to turn “pig’s swill” into wine and make us all drink it whether we wanted to do so or not. Yes, I’m talking about that much bally-hooed feature “cross play” that Micro$soft all swore that we “needed” and that backwards Sony wasn’t letting us have.
Well, I can tell you this: today I’m turning off cross play from this and all future CoD games until Activision stops “banning” accounts (where PCs can just make new ones) and starts implementing actual measures inside their code and UI to counter cheaters. If Activision can’t be bothered to engineer their games to resist cheaters, then they shouldn’t come asking for more money from their consumers for skins, guns, Battle Passes, etc. It’s amazing to me that they want to be inside my wallet, but don’t want to provide a game experience that justifies the original asking price, let alone all the extra money they want for their Battle Pass nonsense.
There’s Even a Reddit ThreadYou know the situation is dire when there’s even a Reddit thread for this issue (in fact, the title of this post is the title of the thread!)!
Here is the thread, if you’re interested in some (initially measured and erudite) reading from other gamers about this issue:
This posting shows some really mature thinking on this fact (at least, initially–towards the bottom, you can see those who feel threatened that cross play is being examined and want to tamp down on any perceived threat to their beloved “cross play” so that they don’t have to buy the same system or multiple systems to play with their friends.
Many of these “individuals” use anecdotal evidence to mention the number of games they’ve played and the fact that they’ve seen very little evidence of cheating, yet, in two games, that lasted less than the full 10 minutes (Team Deathmatch), I saw at least 4-5 instances, and 2 I saved to my PS5 SSD to slow down and show my mother what was happening.
One poster at the bottom claims that another poster couldn’t see an “aimbot” on the killcam. Well, to that wonderful poster, I have proof sitting on my SSD. We were playing on the “Nuketown” map and I’d thrown a smoke grenade. You can see that I’m obscured (no thermal sight for my enemy, let’s call him “Mr. Sniper.”). Mr. Sniper knows I’m there as he pulls back and scopes in (so they were running some version of the “ESP” cheat as well–as the other video shows) and he tracks me to the right of the screen as I move beside the house along the wooden fence. Now, the smoke is still going and he still can’t see, but unerringly his reticle follows my rightward move to the fence. I stop, not quite in the middle, but near the edge of the fence. Mr. Sniper’s reticle follows me, lights on me for a second and continues right and moment before swinging back back to the left where I am and he fires.
Do I survive? No, of course not. But what is so amazing to me is that I really should have named him “Mr See Unnerringly Through Smoke Sniper” because he did all of this amazing targeting WITHOUT ONCE SEEING MY CHARACTER AT ALL THROUGH THE SMOKE GRENADE. No, the smoke didn’t dissipate. No, it didn’t swirl, revealing my character at any point. ALL THIS WAS DONE WITHOUT EVER SEEING MY CHARACTER ON THE SCREEN–NOT ONE PIXEL.
And my eyes weren’t the only ones to see it–I made sure to rewind that clip 3-4 different times for my mother after showing her this the first–just for emphasis!
Not the Most Egregious ClipAnd this wasn’t even the most egregious clip!
To those in the Reddit thread who claim that there are no cheaters, then just take a gander at this little list of features that one website hawks (I’ve highlighted the ones that I’ve seen in action in the game, but this isn’t a complete list from the website even though any one of these features is enough to completely ruin the game):
Black Ops Cold War Hack FeaturesINSTANT KILL AIMBOTInstant Kill Aimbot: Takes the enemy out super fastMovement Prediction: Bullet hits dead center even with player movementFrame Compensation: Frame rate doesn’t matterAim Point: This shows a point on the PC screen for aimingAuto Switch: Change to the next enemy playerHuman Aim: Makes you look like a human and not a botVisibility Checks: This shows when the enemy can and can’t be hitPenetration Checks: Let’s you know if bullets can go through an objectMax Distance: Shows you the enemy anytime they can be hitRandom Bone: Allows the aimbot to change player bone hit ratiosADVANCED ESPCustom ESP Colors(Visible/not Visible for Players, Zombies, Items, Explosives, Vehicles, Dropped Weapons)Custom ESP FontESP Font ShadowCustom Fade Level for Players/Zombies and Objects(Items, Explosives, Vehicles, Dropped Weapons)NameDistanceSkeletonHeaddotHealth (Bar or Text)Bounding Boxes (2D, 2D on the head, 3D)LineHeadDotItemsDropped WeaponsZombiesVehiclesExplosives2D Radar (Players/Zombies, Objects or Both)Ignore FriendliesCHEAT RADARRadar: See the enemy on our radar with dotsEnemy: Show on the radar in redMoveable: Move the radar anywhere on the screenSizeable: Adjust the size of the radarJust Change Your Settings, Already!So, it is possible to toggle the settings on CoD Cold War so that you can play “console only,” so what’s the problem? Just play it on your console of choice and then you never have to deal with cheaters, right?
Well, I don’t know how it is on the “other system,” but on Playstation, not only does it take longer to find a game (which I’m totally cool with, by the way), the games are of such low quality that it isn’t fun. I routinely find myself at a distinct disadvantage in terms of servers/ping. I’m not sure if the console only version simply is Peer-to-Peer with NO connection to Activision servers, or if I’m being matched with players in Europe/Asia/Australia in order to find a game, but I can show you empirically (CoD Cold War has a nice “bar graph” of your score output on recent games and I can SHOW YOU the graph of where I was BEFORE/AFTER I turned on Playstation only. Since turning off cross play, I’ve flatlined at about 200 pts. per minute (where before, I could easily average 400-500, and would often (about 1 in every 10 games or so, hit 700-900 pts. per minute). In other words, I went from getting the maximum kill streak (for me) of the War Machine about 1 in every 7 or 8 games, to barely getting the lowest (for me) kill streak of the UAV (and that’s a struggle)–there were 3 games in a row where I wasn’t even going to earn that. So, my point is, switching to a console only lobby isn’t really an option.
Either you put up with the ever-increasing number of cheaters in cross play, or you “dip out” and move to non-cross play lobbies and get “punished” for it by lobbies that have horrible connections and take any fairness out of the equation for their players.
What’s even worse is the fact that people are praising Microsoft for Crossplay and excoriating Sony for being resistant to it. How’s this for a little resistance from your “Friendly Neighborhood Gaming Company Who Wants You To Believe Everything Their Marketing Department Says”: Defiance Could Have Had Crossplay but Microsoft Said No.
Games are supposed to be for fun. When you cheat, you take the fun out it for others (and yourself). How can you ever hope to get better if you don’t want to lose? I took a beating in chess when we formed a chess club in high school, yet I got good enough to win against a ranked chess player by learning through the losses. It’s about having enough self-respect in yourself (and self-confidence) that you can learn and get better, instead of trying to pretend like you’re dominating and having fun. Wouldn’t it be better if you were good enough to hold your own against cheaters without having to resort to cheating yourself?
And yet, these are the paragons of “virtue” who cry when others want an “easier” mode in the “SoulsBorn” genre (Demon Souls, Bloodborne, etc.) because they’re perfectly willing to deny others any fun experiences, but they themselves aren’t capable of dealing with it when others are able to best them through hardwork and determination.
So, gamers, I ask you, which is it? Stop cheating and “get good,” on games where people can be better than you or stop telling others to “get good” on the games that you happen to like and that you think are “challenging?”
Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways.
SidneyPlease consider supporting these fine small press publishers where my work has appeared:
Read Skin Deep for Free at Aurora WolfRead Childe Roland for Free at Electric SpecPurchase HawkeMoon on Amazon.com (Paperback) or eBookPurchase Dragonhawk on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase WarLight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Ship of Shadows on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindlePurchase Faerie Knight on Amazon.com (Paperback) or KindleCurrently Working On (August 2021):Unhallowed (Weird Western Story)2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.Starlight, Starbright (Science Fiction Story)
2021 Revision: Completed.The Independent (Science Fiction Story)
2021 Revision: Completed; Out to Market.To Dance the Sea of Storms (Fantasy Story)
Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a first draft: Completed, Revision: In ProgressProject Runner (Fantasy Story)
Prewrite: Completed, Plan & Outline: Completed, Write a Rough draft: Completed, Write a First Draft: In Progress (600 words), Hard Deadline: August 31st, 2021 (Special Issue)
