It was revealed yesterday that Activision is boosting its RICOCHET anti-cheat product with a new feature: Hallucinations. It was an update that sent fans into a spiral, with some claiming that the developer and publisher is doing everything except banning cheaters from its games – which currently include Modern Warfare II and Warzone. In a report handed down by #TeamRICOCHET, it was revealed that ‘mitigations’ continue to be looked at as the ultimate counter to in-game cheaters.

In the latest update to RICOCHET, the latest ‘Active Mitigation’ was uncovered, named Hallucinations. It’s a special feature built into RICOCHET that’ll place decoy characters that can only be seen by those that have been detected as cheating. There’s no way for a ‘regular’ or ‘legitimate’ player to see these Hallucinations, and they’ll mess with cheaters to no end.

Is it enough to stem the tide? Probably not.

Hallucinations Change The Perspective

Image Credit: Activision

With the latest Active Mitigation introduced by the RICOCHET team, we’ve learned that cheaters are still being ‘annoyed’ rather than ‘stopped’. With Hallucinations, cheaters see enemies that behave exactly like real players, right down to being detected and detailed by cheat engines as though they’re looking at real-world players and not an AI enemy. They’ve been developed to mimic human movement and habits by becoming a ‘clone’ of another player in the game.

This clone won’t impact said player in any way, shape, or form – it’s just a way to make the Hallucination seem as real as possible. As explained by Team RICOCHET, this is an Active Mitigation aimed at targeting ‘non-rage hackers’, the type of cheaters that deploy malicious measures to beat other players and gain an unfair advantage. They may hide their cheat usage, go to great lengths to disguise what they’re doing, and for the most part, they may even play the game somewhat normally – until it’s time to strike.

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Rotating Mitigations

As Hallucinations are introduced, Team RICOCHET has made the decision to sunset ‘Quicksand’ as another mitigation. With Quicksand, cheaters were slowed to the point of almost being unable to move, making them easy targets for legitimate players. It was removed as a mechanic because developers thought it would be ‘too visually jarring an effect’ for other players to see that slowdown occur.

Reportedly, these mitigations are working quite well in-game. It was claimed that within two weeks of launching the latest update that included third-party hardware device detection, the use of such devices dropped by 59% across MWII and Warzone. However, it was then stated that up to 43% of users that stopped using their devices did eventually try to use them again.

Finally, Team RICOCHET revealed an overhaul of the in-game reporting system, which includes enforcing a rule against ‘malicious reporting’. If you’re misusing the report form and ‘spam reporting’ legitimate players, you could face permanent account suspensions. There will be more clarity offered on in-game notifications about submitted reports, and automated penalities will now be handed out for voice and text-based infractions.

Do you think Team RICOCHET is doing enough to deal with cheaters in Call of Duty?

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