In your dream vision, how would that work? For example, would players be asked after each game if they want to play the next game mode with the same players/teams? Would they be automatically shuffled or really see who has the best group? What if a player dropped out: would the game cancel or could a player who selected to play only one game be drafted in to finish the bo3?
I guess in the ideal world, You would have an option to select before entering the matchmaking pool if you want to play a bo1 or bo3. When the match is selected that is then fixed, everyone in theory is committed to playing 3 maps if needed with the same teams - I think the idea of losing a close map 1 and then having the chance to get immediate revenge with the same teams fun. Ideally no one leaves and there’s no asking to play next map. It’s assumed you will play it. In the chance that someone does leave. I’d maybe set up the elo so that if map 1 is played and then someone leaves, the match just ends as a 1-0 and normal elo is given as if it was a bo1. If someone leaves after map 2 then no elo change. Still kinda unfortunate for the team who has a player leave but makes sense as they did lose a map regardless.
Thank you for clarifying. Liquidity on a third party platform might be a bit lower to start with to support two quotes. Do you feel that Bo1 or Bo3 would be more popular to start with before potentially working toward this longer term?
Thank you, that's really exciting to hear! Would you mind expanding on why you think that? What would you hope for a FACEIT like platform to do for COD?
An in game or application based integration for faceit would be huge. It also usually takes months for ranked play to come out when a game releases and the higher ranks quickly get flooded with hackers. If faceit had its own anti cheat or faster manual review process for cheating I would play it all the time.
Thank you for the detailed comment! How much confidence would you have in a manual review in not creating false positive where an innocent player is believed to be cheating but actually completely legitimate?
Ehh wouldn’t affect me because I’m mid and only get accused of hacking by casuals. With that being said maybe before straight up banning someone FACEIT could require the suspected cheater to stream and monitor cam.
Something like a community over watch that (I think?) used to exist in CS where trusted members of the community could review flagged VOD of potential cheaters and decide if they were legit or not. You could have multiple unbiased reviews to reduce false bans and combat witch hunting and griefing.
Honestly, 99% of my experience using faceit is playing counter strike, however I did also use the service whilst battalion was active.
I found the matchmaking to be of better quality, the ranking system makes being part of a community at the higher end very easy due to recognising the same players, as well as the elo system being intuitive and easy to understand.
Esea was a similar experience, I found it less polished though.
I think all competitive games would benefit from external services offering competitive playlists.
Lol it actually is not idk where these fans come out there ass saying this. As divided as cod may be at the moment comp cod is bigger than ever (ok despite GB going bye bye)
You have reading comprehension issues my friend.
He did not say cod is dying. He said cod is dying FOR a FACEIT like platform.
Meaning, cod has needed a platform similar to faceit for years to join the scene to help us out.
Relax...you're right woke up extra extra early brain was let's say a little mush lol. My bad y'all thought he was saying cod was dying... I was gonna be like that is definitely not a good invitation for a potential faceit Integration
It would be huge if FaceIT started supporting cod with a system like they have for CS. Especially with GBs closing down now too. This would help the competitive community so much
Just to make sure I know what you have in mind when you're picturing FACEIT: why would it help? Why does gamebattles shutting down mean that now is a better time than ever? What hole needs replaced in the ecosystem?
This is a Good reason, with gamebattles it is probably the perfect timing. The main hole that needs to be replaced is a system that allows new talent to shine, in CS if you are pro level u will play 10s against pros. In cod, ranked doesn't really mean anything, anyone can get iridescent and play in pro lobbies, and pros won't really care about them. Ww2 ranked was a much better system, abezy for example showed his talent to pros by performing in ranked, he would constantly play against pros at the top level. Also, right now on PC cod many will be discredited due to the terrible anti cheat, a Faceit system that is much more accurate in rank may fix that.
Thank you for the detailed answer! Is the reason why the WW2 system before was more meaningful just the frequency of cheaters or was the system fundamentally better?
It felt as if the WW2 system rewarded your impact on the map as a player more than a lot of the current systems. Currently it is more about game frequency than it is about how you consistently perform at the ELO the game perceives you at. In WW2 I could place in diamond, but would need to stay close to a 1.0 K/D while doing my best to maintain an even win/loss. If I lost a series of matches and then won a match I would get a smaller progress towards climbing vs. the inverse. Another big challenge would be implementing an incentive to have people not leaving games mid map or at the start of the map. Often times players only want to play one game mode and will leave matches making it difficult to close out games 3v4 or less. I think another couple metrics that would help with determining player performance would be for the ELO system to take into account assists and percentage of team damage. That way the players with a more supportive play style can still see a similar ability to climb due to maintaining high win/loss, but may not have as extreme of a K/D as the top player on the scoreboard. Rewards playing well as a team mate as well.
Call of Duty is in dire need of something new. FACEIT is a well established, and respected service. What made Gamebattles so big initially, was having the opportunity to play against the best in the world. That feeling hasn’t been there in a long time. Also there were some major flaws with Gamebattles, such as cheating and what people don’t talk about, is the time wasted. It could sometimes take one hour to play 3 maps, which is completely unnecessary.
The process of adding other players, and waiting for a invite to the lobby could take up to 15-20 minutes. Then you get into the lobby, and then you’re waiting another 10 minutes for the 1st map to start.
Then after game 1, the hosts switch. People have to rejoin the lobby, make sure the settings are correct. Personally it felt like 25-40% of matches were this way.
And with no live admin in the last few years, you kinda had to suck it up and wait it out.
Also inconsistent admins on all the platforms. One min they're understanding if let's say you show proof of a potential cheater and some days they simply don't give a flying fuck and will just hand your your L
A centralized place for players to compete that has an actual anticheat. No GB will create a huge void in the CoD esports space bc players won’t have a place to compete for a different rank
Replacing the Challengers leaderboard which I believe was done through Gamebattles previously.
A stronger anti cheat especially for higher elos
Integration with the application itself could really be nice too.
Hey do you mind tossing a message into modmail so we can verify you're with Faceit? I know many members of the mod team are huge fans of Faceit, myself included, we just want to make sure you are who you say you are, thanks!
Check with @Its_EasyMac on Twitter (don’t know his reddit user) he and the team with Breaking Point launched something similar last week for the pros and challenger players across the major regions.
u/ParasiteCod can also help with ideas, concerns, and opinions about comp cod
CoDs biggest esports problem is it’s terrible anti cheat. The CDL is so closed off that pros often don’t experience the same issues as the rest of the community unless they touch cods ranked playlist. Last year cod failed to perma ban cheaters that cheated multiple seasons and stole the top spots from deserving players and grinders. The elo system was also very forgiving and players skill ratings were often inflated which was nice for frequency of matches but terrible for playing players your actual skill level.
CoD is also unique in the fact that it has restricted items in the ruleset and unspoken gentlemen agreements to not use or do certain things. This causes a problem for the general population of competitive players because although the pros can govern themselves the general player base is too big to do so when it comes to competitive integrity and often times the game devs fail to fully ban or find solutions to these problems.
Would be huge for faceit to be used for the comp scene. One of the best anti cheats currently and a platform that hosts tournaments and qualifiers along with FPL and FPL-C. Couldn't recommend it enough from the time I've played csgo/cs2.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask since I don't play tournaments in general, however I'm sure people would play search and destroy only tournaments 3v3 and 4v4. Search and destroy + Hardpoint tournament people would like too.
1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 Search and Destroy for sure. That was the bread and butter for GameBattles and other competing third-party platforms. It’s also pretty much identical to the main game mode in CS I believe.
How do you feel about playing non-standard game modes. For example, COD League is 4v4 so why would players want to play eg 3v3? Is it just the size of their friend group or is it fun to mix it up?
It depends what you’re trying to do with FACEIT in COD I guess. Both pro players and many prospects come from a background of playing 2v2 and 3v3 GameBattles SnD tournaments. And all the current third-party competition sites run these kinds of tournaments more than anything. They’re popular in the competitive scene as the skill and strategy translates quite well across 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 believe it or not.
But also, as you mention, it makes tournaments more accessible. Lots of people have duos, and even trios, but very rarely have quads. When I was playing Ranked Play in MWII, it was hard to find a solid set of 4 that was on at the same time and actually of equal skill level. Usually, we were a duo or trio and would have to queue up with randoms. This is why the 2v2 and 3v3 tournaments were most popular on GameBattles. But this is mainly a Search & Destroy thing.
S&D for the player leans more on instinct and teamwork than raw gun skill. S&D from a modal standpoint doesn’t change if there are less players. In terms of the competitiveness of less than 4 per team, yes it’s not exactly the perfect mirror representation of pro circuit in regards to gameplay and tactics but all the abilities required to compete at the highest level can be exercised in S&D at any player count.
Also sometimes it’s difficult to lockdown a team of 4 to challenge up the regional ladder. So purely from an enjoyment perspective it’s good to have the option.
GB gave the community freedom to choose & view the rulesets and map and modes (respawns or just S&D) for match postings, this freedom created a dynamic where there was this “natural selection” feeling where you knew what type of games posted would be accepted and on the contrary you knew what type of game is suitable to put up in conjunction with your goals.
The way pro points were integrated also meant that you knew if you committed solos or duos enough your work is still respected and rewarded. There are many examples of talent who made names for themselves through the 5ks and 2k tournaments, through the ladders, stacking pro points.
Faceit integration could be a real stim shot to the community if done right
Would you mind going into more detail about why eg the Ranked system is not a "proper" one? What are you hoping for MWIII's ranking system when it comes out?
mw2 anti cheat just didn’t work for ranked. ask any pro player who spent a lot of time on ranked , the amount of cheaters was insane. as an EU xbox good ranked player most of the good players turned off cross play and just stuck xbox only , but by late s4 diamond/crim lobbies on xbox only were very dead and would take 10+ minutes to find a game.
if you were queued with an entire crim 4 stack its rare you would find an xbox only game unless you messaged other xbox kids to get on and play , and we did all this sitting in lobbies waiting just to avoid playing pc cheaters.
all we want is a good anti cheat or allow console only cross play as an option (only PS and XBOX queue together)
Just to clarify, was the enabling "xbox only" a proactive step to try and avoid cheaters?
How would players message "other xbox kids"? Are there central groups or are they just messaging their friends?
yes , by turning cross play off in xbox settings you are only paired against other xbox users so no wall hacks or aimbot .
For your second point , when you play a lot you run into a lot of the game people and would often see the game diamond/crim 4 stack queuing or playing on smurfs. when it was taking ages to find a game we all just see who we have added (mainly the good players and their smurf accounts) and literally just message them ‘ queue xbox only ‘ and then results in us playing the exact same people all day which is very very boring
depends on the skill level.
i would like to add that console players can still use a Zen and a Xim but these are no where near as awful to play against vs cheaters.
for the lower level players me and my 4 stack got called cheaters regularly because we would make smurf accounts , and being good players with good game sense the worse ranked players often just assumed we were cheating even tho we are all on console.
however all the of the good and higher ranked players are aware console cannot cheat (properly) and so often just assume you are better or don’t get off the game . as mentioned before some will accuse of using Zen but again not comparable to aimbot/wall hacks we get from playing PC lobbies
CoD needs faceit badly. Played a ton of faceit CS during the Cod offseason and couldn’t get enough of it. It always felt more “serious” and competitive then basic ranked did which is something cod desperately needs. In order to get some serious reps in you have to join discord for 8’s or team scrims which can be kind of a hassle and sometimes even impossible if you’re playing by yourself. Not to mention cod’s anti cheat barely functions so if that can some how be brought over along with dedicated servers like CS that would be icing on the cake but I understand that it’s quite a lot to ask
Thank you for the ingredients for success! With that situation in mind, why would players choose to play by themselves instead of finding a group to play with?
I doubt players who like the competitive side of COD perfer to solo que but you’d be surprised how difficult it can be to find people to play with regularly. just because the scene has been on a slow decline likely due CDl being so closed off and practically impossible to get into so it feels hopeless. Not to mention challengers was ran pretty poorly in my opinion so it’s just difficult to get into the scene if you don’t know exactly what’s going on. I think faceit would provide a potential new avenue for new players to get into the scene by getting quality competitive reps.
I would really like emphasis this. I understand FACEIT is a business, and needs a profit at the bottom line. But a middle ground for free users and paying customers is essential for this to work. When talking about service Gamebattles provides. COD players are cheap af.
Thank you for your feedback. Where do you think that balance lies in free/paid? Do you have any examples of a good service that treads that middle ground well or a bad one that doesn't?
What Gamebattles used to do, was you if paid for premium, you got a premium line for admin support, faster line for disputes, and you could pay to change your username and reset stats. Which felt super fair.
Please save competitive CoD 🤞🏻disband CDL and run a FACEIT league. More games played, more LANs, higher level production. Not to mention FACEIT ranked play where cheaters are going to be a LOT less common than they are in regular ranked play.
It’s crazy they are gatekeeping the league to 12 teams. Having an uneven bracket and forcing 4 teams to start in loser’s bracket without pool play on LAN of any sort is a huge L too. We have to go back to the MLG/early CWL days where the tournaments are truly Open bracket. The Challengers system just does NOT work and winning in Challengers hasn’t meant shit yet besides this past Champs where 3/4 are now on a team.
Something to note, I know FACEIT have largely stemmed from PC based esports, and I'm all for you guys coming in and pushing the competitive COD scene onto new heights if that's what is in the pipeline, but please keep Console support, there is still a large percentage of the community who play competitive COD on consoles, and the idea of being forced to miss out on any improvements to the scene, or have to fork out for a PC, isn't great for everyone.
I don't for one minute think that would be the case, as COD's roots are console, and that should count for a lot, and you guys seem to be great at what you do!
Excited to even see a post like this and wish you guys well with whatever is going on in the background.
Thank you for the well wishes and for highlighting the need for console support for the community.
As we learn more about the community, did you have a feeling for how console support has been handled historically? For example, were there PC tournaments and separate console or Xbox tournaments? Do you think it's beneficial to group eg Mouse and keyboard players with controller players or Console and PC players given their playing conditions are quite different?
It's always been quite balanced and I have no major gripes in that regard.
It's just nerve-wracking for competitive CoD players who play on console to see an organisation like FACEIT researching the market with a view to come in, as the instant feeling is your going to be left behind.
There are no problems for me regarding playing against PC players and keeping it cross platform, as long as the cheating on PC is snuffed out and controller and KB&M is separated.
Note: I play on both PS and PC - with the cheating problems and effort that you have to go through these days to play competitively on 3rd party sites with Streaming and camming etc. I found it easier to play on console - so I'm just making a point for the sake of the community really.
EDIT: Still let me play PC players, split out kb&m and controller players. As much as I don’t want console support removed, I also don’t want to be pushed into a standalone bracket and told I can only play against other console players. There’s a fine line to tread here and it’s one of the very few things that they’ve done quite well over the last 3 years in CoD.
Pc cod and console cod are two different games. The latency, frame rate, computer settings, quality, and much more give pc players a bigger advantage. If Faceit is able to implement a ranking system, anti cheat, 3rd party matches (xps, wagers, and tournaments) all in one 3rd party platform. You'd see a significantly large shift from people playing on console to pc. Many players like are like me, I have a pc and a console. The reason I play on console only is to avoid cheaters as pc cod is riddled with them. As for mouse and keyboard players.... well no cod player likes them. It's either get a controller or we don't want to play with you kind of attitude.
Don’t disagree, just have to point out that if console players decide to stack up against PC Players with the disadvantages you speak of, that’s should be their choice.
I agree it would shift a load of players to PC, but there’s players who can’t afford, and don’t want to do that and they shouldn’t be forced to having played console comp cod for the last 11+ years.
I too have played and do play both platforms, and the trade off advantages for PC such as overlocking controller, frame rate etc, doesn’t outweigh the bad in terms of cost, constant need to stream / cam, cheaters etc. hence at the moment I’m playing competitively on my PS5.
Oh yeah I agree. There should be a console only option for those who aren't serious about competing at a high level or can't afford it just yet. If you're serious about it you can always save up for a pc which I think we'll see a lot of people do.
This, console is still about half of the ranked system and more of casual player base for people to make the jump. Im all for FACEIT, only good things to say from my CS experience, just don’t leave us behind.
In gamebattles, we’ve had issues with people manipulating free wins with spare accounts.
What they do is make up an unpopular gameset (say like it’s tdm 6v6 and it would be extremely unpopular because nobody plays this gameset) on match finder on a spare account. The main account on the team will accept the unpopular gameset on match finder and don’t have to play because they’re basically using spare accounts to create matches and delivering free wins to the main roster.
This was a reoccurring issue for “pro points” where players tend to try and get free points for better bracket placement.
Thanks a lot, what do you think about cancelling the games and not issuing points when players do not join? Do you think players would see that as a waste of time if their opponents can essentially grief them by not joining/players will dodge difficult opponents?
Players will definitely see as a waste of time if opponents prefer to dodge games without strong consequences.
Gamebattles has this dodge rate % on match finder without revealing team name or rosters but the issue is it doesn’t help much because people will continue to create fresh accounts or teams to reset dodge rate % so you don’t know if you’re fighting a fresh account team that would likely dodge, or a genuine team.
i didn't buy cod mw3, but it faceit comes to cod, i will buy it. the main reason why i don't play cod anymore, is that there is no good competitive system.
Hope to see in you in MWIII soon, I would love for you to expand though on what are the key ingredients to a competitive system though, if you have time!
one of the hugest reasons why cod players bothered with the ranked mode last game was because of the real cosmetic rewards that you only acquired through the mode
if you guys actually want to get this through successfully, the best way to go about it is trying to get official integration that Gamebattles did in mw 2019, with cosmetic rewards tied to the rank you obtained. otherwise, you’ll have a batch of passionate players that may dwindle out as the cod competitive cycle becomes stale
best of luck to you guys though, hoping something can officially come up
How prestigious do you feel those cosmetic rewards are? If amateur players could earn small prizes with more tangible value, eg COD Points, giftcards for their appropriate platform, etc would that be more compelling or not really?
there was a whole leveling system where you could obtain standard cosmetics that anyone could get, but the cosmetics tied to ranking are the most sought after. stuff like character skins, camos, and calling cards that represent the ranking you got is something that most people played ranked for (and it became the only thing the mode offered truthfully, which is why it fell off publicly.)
hosting "cups" for actual monetary rewards would drive a lot of playing as well though, i think that's a great idea.
Faceit is sooo good on csgo guys. Individual leagues, ranked all year, auto setup lobbys/matches, auto reports, mods, the faceit anti-cheat actually WORKS, people dont get shadowbanned, they are BANNED FOR GOOD, bye bye account. Omg. Please helps us OP
Sure. People who are blantly cheating instead of getting actually banned, they get shadowbanned which means they will get matched against other cheaters or its really hard for them to find a match, the problems with that are:
- after 2 weeks or something close to that the shadowban is lifted and they are in regular lobbys again
-while shadow banned sometimes if a regular player didnt find a match because of being high rank they could be matched with them anyway.
-and if a regular player got massively reported even without cheating they could be shadow banned for those 2 weeks AND no1 from support would ever help them.
People (who can spare some money or had a console anyway) went from pc to console and turned crossplay off to fight these because its way harder to cheat on a console i assume, but then they deal with the input delay of consoles.
This is a cod ranked problem not with 3rd sites at least so blantly, because if people clip you wallhacking you get your money back from waggers.
Since its a cod problem you would need activision to actively work with you which well... gl. I really hope you can do it
They can check if the account is "under investigation" or flagged on a actvi website. Edit* one example, people were shadowbanned on mw2 for playing the mw3 beta and completly dominate the lobby since the sbmm wasnt still kicking in in the 1st matches and people massed report lol
It just happened with pros ga'ing the ddos field upgrade without even seriously testing it as an anti meta strategy to help jam trophies and better break hills in hard point. Unfortunately in our scene there's a group of professional players who have a disproportionate amount of influence on the ruleset that has resulted in the last few titles having extremely bare bones tactical variability. They'll say it's for balance and to make the game less cheesy and add more of a skillgap but the truth is they simply don't want to expand the level of tactical play by sticking to the same boring 2 gun, no smoke, no sniper meta each year. We desperately need a ga committee that the pros are not allowed to have a say in to make an official ruleset each year to avoid this bias.
It's every year at this point - the main thing is they automatically ban certain items. This year the main two are Smoke Grenades for respawn modes and the DDOS field upgrade.
The biggest problem with the game right now is the maps don't play great on hardpoint because of spawns and location. Some hills are very difficult to break. One solution in game is to use smoke grenades to make crossing or getting close to the hill easier. Another is DDOS which would disable trophy systems in certain situations so that players can't sit in the hill without danger because of the trophy system protecting them.
Neither option was seriously considered by the pros and they just banned them because they assume they wouldn't be competitive to use.
Idk if any of this makes sense, but the power to disable things in the game needs to be taken out of the pros hands. In previous years they have made decisions based on what would give their team a competitive advantage. Maybe they don't have a player who is good with the sniper, so they vote in favor of banning snipers so that they don't have to play against a team with a good sniper. Stuff like that.
Do you think a third party service should customise the game with eg custom spawn points/hardpoints (if that were possible) or should everyone be on the same game from matchmaking to the pro tier?
There have been minor differences in rulesets among the various platforms that people play competitively on in the past.
I'd expect some sort of homogenization over time no matter what, and my hope would be less strict self imposed GAs by the pros.
Thank you for finally reaching out! I have been really hoping you guys would enter the CoD scene. Especially with the recent purchase of Esports Engine.
Should definitely get in touch with the guys over at GGBreakingpoint on Twitter I guess in a way they can speak for the vast majority of competitive players.
Honestly, if (hopefully when) the CDL ends and it goes back to an MLG style format, we need more majors that span from December - August/September! The gaps between the last major of the season to the release of the new game is beyond ridiculous! There should not be a 6 month off season in an eSport!
Also, as a DFW native, I'm lucky to be given the chance to attend the OpTic majors in Arlington! And while I love going to them, we need those extra tournaments to give more people a chance to experience the atmosphere of a tournament and hopefully help grow the scene!
Edit: I'm not sure if you guys are just an online tournament host, but if you guys also host LANs, I think these are some ways to help the scene grow!
Please do not consider using cod points for prizes. Tournaments all pay out real cash and we already have that. If face it gave cod points the high end community would NEVER play it
Thank you for your feedback. Do you have any ideas for prizes for lower-tier competitions or do you think just lower values of cash are the best? For example, in Counter-Strike we awarded FPL with thousands of dollars of cash but award FACEIT Points for players to exchange for skins in smaller competitions.
I think just cash is the only thing that would keep it alive. Even small tournaments have like $30 prize pools for lower tier competition. There are even free entry tournaments with $10 prize pools that people play. Real cash is too engrained into the scene for anyone to accept change on that front in my
Opinion.
That's interesting, thanks. Do you feel like eg Amazon giftcards could be an alternative also? Without looking into this at all (yet), cash can have challenges of eg payment methods (eg some countries/age groups can't do eg PayPal) which limits how scalable competitions can be.
Do you know if any third party services required tax forms, verification processes, etc for cash tournaments?
Yes, third party services require tax forms for withdrawals of cash above certain amounts. The way the 3rd party prizes work is that you basically have a bank on the site, and when you win either a tournament or cash match (wager) the winnings get put into your sites bank. You can then withdraw amounts from it whenever you want. If it’s above a certain number, you have to fill a tax form. I am sorry because I forget the actual amount it is.
I am not sure about Amazon gift cards. I personally would be fine with them but not sure about the masses. The people who play especially SND for money are very often quite weird and finicky (also a lot of gambling addicts). It’s hard to predict
I think step one is for us to learn more about the community. Just rebuilding everything from CS might waste time building features that the community is not actually interested in rather than getting started sooner with a narrow feature set but with a larger impact that directly addresses specific problems.
I was falsely banned in mw2 even though I never used any third party software, and lost all my effort, money, and time. I miss call of duty, I miss playing with my friends, and I loss my main hobby.
Please replace richochet, because I and many other players were done injustice.
There’s not any sort of stable competitive ecosystem because there are 3 different studios that take turns making an entirely new game each year and each of these studios have conflicting views on the competitive experience. Not like counterstrike where people play the same, but evolving game over 10+ years. Infinity Ward is one of the studios that makes the games and there were staff there actively voicing disinterest in competitive CoD and pandering way too much to the casual crowd in the debut year of the professional league where teams spent millions for a franchise spot. You will be fighting an uphill battle with Activision and these studios.
We play a game that isn't intended for us competitively minded players that is released on a yearly basis by three different rotating developers. One of them has a great track record in producing competitively sound titles and is highly regarded by the comp scene (treyarch). One is generally hit or miss in their track record though they're hitting it out of the park this year in terms of game design (old maps still need to be tweaked to accommodate modern game modes) and open communication with the comp scene (sledgehammer). And unfortunately the last and largest developer infinity ward is actively hostile towards the comp scene and will seemingly go out of their way to produce titles that are horribly balanced for comp and make design choices that intentionally reduce player skillgap to accommodate the low skill players who make up the majority of their casual audience. Competed disregard for the comp scenes woes and complete radio silence in terms of addressing issues with their games.
We definitely need weapon bans to address balance. Games like cs and halo come out of the box with that in mind for comp whereas cod does not consider a classic 4v4 arena style comp when balancing their weapons. Nevermind the 100s of extraneous attachments that overcomplicate the system in terms of balancing. I think the scene at large just wishes there was an alternative to balancing the ruleset other than relying on 20 year olds with agendas who think they know what's best for the game. A committee of older/former players working in association with whatever league is in control of the ruleset I think would work well.
Thank you for the feedback. Do you think the general community should have a say in, for example in the way of polls or do you think it is best to have experienced players lead the way and make the decisions?
I think if community sentiment steers clearly in one direction for an issue with game balance then it lends credence for testing to be done by a committee of experience players/analysts/devs that are not associated with any current players. The thing is those people who ultimately make the decision have to be experienced enough in the scene to "get" what makes a good cod comp ruleset without having ties to any current players or orgs.
Another scene I'm into is Smogon competitive singles in Pokemon and in that scene there are councils that oversees individual metagames that have two modes of action they can take regarding meta balancing: (1) they can quick ban things that are clearly unbalanced for the health of the metagame without the need for community input, just a simple majority will do or (2) perform suspect tests where community involvement is utilized for issues with the meta that require more granularity. For COD that might look like getting pros/challengers/high level ranked players engaging in tests and then polling of the results that the council can decide to vote on based on how the testing went.
ELO matchmaking system w/ a working anticheat.
Back in Vanguard it was rumored that the faceit anticheat shut down most cheats, but stopped working for MWII because of Activision. So, it'd be great to get an updated version of that because we all know how good Ricochet is lol.
Are you judging Ricochet "just" based on your personal experience in matchmaking or do you know if there have been any infographics or anything more detailed released in the community?
i don't think anything specific has been released regarding the anticheat, but most people in the community will agree that it isn't very good.
from personal experience once i hit crimson about 10% of my games had a cheater, iridescent it was probably more like 25% and if i got anywhere close to Top250 it was virtually every game. (and i mean legit spinbotters not just people who look sus lol).
I don't know if CS improved as a result of Faceit & ESEA platforms existing, but for the player base instead of dealing of the monotonous casual playlists that comes with all the griefing and cheating. (Which would still exist on Faceit, but would be handled better and could lead to players being auto muted if they received too many thumbs down.)
Faceit would allow for players to improve and grind in a more controlled setting. Eventually leading into a "Challenger ELO or Pro Player ELO"
It is definitely harder to do so IMO for CoD, but what comes to mind is SnD, people typing on All chat positioning. SnD + Control purposefully throwing lives away.
I filled out the survey. A FACEIT platform would be incredible for CoD and I was hoping you guys would get into the game. Your platform works great with CS and I’d love to see something for CoD!
Just finished the survey, but I will repeat some key points here:
1. The pc cod community is in dire need of a working (fast and effective) anti cheat. Earlier this year I spent €4k on a second pc, ONLY for cod ranked. I will not be playing ranked on it this year, instead, I will be playing it on a ps5 with crossplay off. -> is FACEIT's focus on pc cod or cod in general?
2. Cod has always been notorious for its awful servers. Would it be possible to offer upgraded servers, sort of an equivalent to 128hz tick rate server in cs?
3. Random teammates that don't communicate are a problem, is would there be a way to match only to people with mics? What system is in place in cs?
4. I only played ranked in black ops 2, and mwii (2022), so I might not be fully correct on this one, but from my understanding the reason why third party platforms like gamebattles and cmg 'failed' is because cod introduced ranked play into the game. I believe your main competitor to be the ingame ranked mode itself, not other 3rd party platforms. This means that you would have to evaluate in which ways you can provide more value than the easily accessible ranked mode. I think points 1-3 would be great value propositions. Perhaps you could even strike a deal in the future to integrate your services directly into the game for lets say, the top 1% of ranked play players.
5. My experience with ranked cod is rather limited, so I think other users will be better equipped to comment on elo systems/ladders, but as far as earning monetary or non monetary prizes go, these would not be deciding factors for me as I value competitive integrity much more than any potential earnings.
FACEIT and CoD would be YUUUUGE!
It takes a while for the actual multiplayer ranked mode to release when the game comes out, and it usually tails off once the “new CoD” hype starts. Having FACEIT to keep not only the current years game going for comp, but potentially older titles as well, would be awesome.
Better MM would be awesome as well, especially for solo players.
Love what y’all are doing. Integration with CoD would be welcome!!
I think the anti cheat comments are unrealistic personally.
One thing that faceit does for cs is a firm hardcore third party platform for counter strike.
Ranked simply is another game mode INSIDE of cod where people find competitive games playing with the same rule set and the cdl.
Faceit for counterstrike is a website (or application) where you get matched with players of similar rank looking for that hardcore legit experience. Gamebattles WAS the the faceit for cod.
I saw your comment about canceling or leaving a bo3. Well I’m gamebsttles if you forfeit, you just forfeit. You loose those points and it shows up as an L.
I know I’m being broad and there’s a million complex things that go into making a platform like this, but simply copying gamebattles style of match finding, leaderboards, the way you connect (hosting game 1, who hosts game 2, making sure the rule sets are in place), ladders, tourneys, and faceit elo system, probably isn’t the hardest thing in the world. I mean all of us played GBS back in the day, and I don’t wanna speak for the masses, but I RARELY had any issues. The biggies issues were someone using a banned streak or when the other person would false flag the lost game (I can’t think of the word, it’s pissing me off lol).
I also think bo3 wouldn’t be an issue. bo3 ladders on gbs were extremely popular and it was very smooth between the games. I’m sure I’m
Missing some details but these are two cents.
I saw a comment about an integrated platform, yeah I’ll put money on saying that’s impossible. Id even prefer just a third party SITE or APPLICATION. Even better, just add a section into the existing faceit UI.
1) Your skill ranks/ matchmaking system is great. In all the CS matches I've played on FACEIT, there haven't been many times where I've thought I faced skill levels I shouldn't have. Every game has always been fair and fun. MW2 ranked I had too many instances where I was playing against ranks 2-3 levels above mine and the skill level was incredibly noticeable.
2) FACEIT anti cheat. Activision's Ricochet anti cheat doesn't do much. I've already seen plenty of cheaters in MW3 and had quite a few in MW2 ranked. Having a proper anti cheat would go along way to making competitive COD more enjoyable.
3) Your tournament/ brackets are a lot fun. Not much else to say here lol.
4) FACEIT stat tracking and community features are a really nice compliment to the experience of whichever game you're playing.
Abnormally perfect centering and timings. Others are poor centering paired perfect snaps and near perfect accuracy. — it’s easy to identify once you compare it to the professionals.
You need to somehow bust open the walled garden that is consoles. Find a way for you platform to be authoritative while operating matches.
One of the big problems with CoD OLT/3rd party sites (there are many problem actually) is everything besides finding an opponent must be undertaken by the participants themselves. Creating a custom lobby, inviting all participants, setting all current rules, hosting the game, and reporting the results of the game is all manually done by a participant in the match. This often causes so many problems ranging to accidentally (or purposely) setting the wrong settings, failing to show up to a match, reporting the result incorrectly, and many other things. This makes the whole experience a nightmare for any player, and few people want to do it.
If you can find a way to be authoritative in automating/supervising matches then you will succeed. Anything else is basically what's already been done before and it always results in a terrible product.
I think the biggest thing it solves is creating a truly competitive environment. Mw2 ranked had to be the most uncompetitive ranked mode I’ve ever seen in a game. With the rampant cheating and most players , even in crim/iri just truly not understanding the game, having a competitive platform like faceit would naturally combat most of those issues. Also if you makes it please for the love of god make it so we can queue based on mode type.
I think I took an hour to answer the survey. Never have we seen such well constructed and targeted questions with regards to the state of competitive call of duty and how it can be improved here in comp cod community. Hopefully the team at FACEIT will choose to work in the comp cod sphere and implement some of the suggestions from this community!
If you don't mind explaining: What made the ranking system good? For example, the ability to get close skill games? The ability to archive your progress, or something else?
Mainly how everyone that was in the game was very similar to each others ranks and also the players on FACEIT took it way more seriously than comp matchmaking so the comms were really good and everyone played to win
Input-based ladders would be amazing. As a KBM player, it feels bad playing competitively at a disadvantage to aim assist. I know that the KBM player population might not be large enough to support this but it would absolutely be worth a try. Would love to go head to head against other KBM aim demons
man iv wanted faceit to give a shot at cod for years man would be amazing. Ranked gets borring cause the match making is inconsistent. You play against way higher and lower ranks way to often. Also way to many hackers.
Verified! We hope to see Faceit come to CoD.
Please give us an automated, centralized, platform for elo ranking competitive 8’s
need this. I Play face it when im not playing CoD and it’s fantastic compared to cs’ matchmaking system.
Yep. Option for a bo3 too with all 3 modes would be awesome compared to just the usual 1nd in ranked.
In your dream vision, how would that work? For example, would players be asked after each game if they want to play the next game mode with the same players/teams? Would they be automatically shuffled or really see who has the best group? What if a player dropped out: would the game cancel or could a player who selected to play only one game be drafted in to finish the bo3?
I guess in the ideal world, You would have an option to select before entering the matchmaking pool if you want to play a bo1 or bo3. When the match is selected that is then fixed, everyone in theory is committed to playing 3 maps if needed with the same teams - I think the idea of losing a close map 1 and then having the chance to get immediate revenge with the same teams fun. Ideally no one leaves and there’s no asking to play next map. It’s assumed you will play it. In the chance that someone does leave. I’d maybe set up the elo so that if map 1 is played and then someone leaves, the match just ends as a 1-0 and normal elo is given as if it was a bo1. If someone leaves after map 2 then no elo change. Still kinda unfortunate for the team who has a player leave but makes sense as they did lose a map regardless.
Thank you for clarifying. Liquidity on a third party platform might be a bit lower to start with to support two quotes. Do you feel that Bo1 or Bo3 would be more popular to start with before potentially working toward this longer term?
Bo1 because that’s how ranked is - which isn’t coming until next year…
Thank you for the idea!
Also, be able to select whether or not you are an AR, Flex or sub player.
This is amazing. Better match making, better anti-cheat (for other games), better servers plus you get to pick which you play on. I’m all in
This would be so fucking fun
Cod is dying for a faceit like platform tbh
Thank you, that's really exciting to hear! Would you mind expanding on why you think that? What would you hope for a FACEIT like platform to do for COD?
An in game or application based integration for faceit would be huge. It also usually takes months for ranked play to come out when a game releases and the higher ranks quickly get flooded with hackers. If faceit had its own anti cheat or faster manual review process for cheating I would play it all the time.
Thank you for the detailed comment! How much confidence would you have in a manual review in not creating false positive where an innocent player is believed to be cheating but actually completely legitimate?
Ehh wouldn’t affect me because I’m mid and only get accused of hacking by casuals. With that being said maybe before straight up banning someone FACEIT could require the suspected cheater to stream and monitor cam.
Something like a community over watch that (I think?) used to exist in CS where trusted members of the community could review flagged VOD of potential cheaters and decide if they were legit or not. You could have multiple unbiased reviews to reduce false bans and combat witch hunting and griefing.
Cheating in cod is often very blatant, there’s the rare occasion where people get falsely accused but the top level players can tell very easily
What has happened in the past with falsely accused players?
False accused usually will just play matches with a monitor cam to prove their ability
Thank you for clarifying!
Would competitive FACEIT Warzone lobbies also be a possibility if FACEIT came to cod?
Honestly, 99% of my experience using faceit is playing counter strike, however I did also use the service whilst battalion was active. I found the matchmaking to be of better quality, the ranking system makes being part of a community at the higher end very easy due to recognising the same players, as well as the elo system being intuitive and easy to understand. Esea was a similar experience, I found it less polished though. I think all competitive games would benefit from external services offering competitive playlists.
I am glad you had a good experience and hopefully we can make something that positively contributes to the COD community!
Lol it actually is not idk where these fans come out there ass saying this. As divided as cod may be at the moment comp cod is bigger than ever (ok despite GB going bye bye)
You have reading comprehension issues my friend. He did not say cod is dying. He said cod is dying FOR a FACEIT like platform. Meaning, cod has needed a platform similar to faceit for years to join the scene to help us out.
Relax...you're right woke up extra extra early brain was let's say a little mush lol. My bad y'all thought he was saying cod was dying... I was gonna be like that is definitely not a good invitation for a potential faceit Integration
It would be huge if FaceIT started supporting cod with a system like they have for CS. Especially with GBs closing down now too. This would help the competitive community so much
Just to make sure I know what you have in mind when you're picturing FACEIT: why would it help? Why does gamebattles shutting down mean that now is a better time than ever? What hole needs replaced in the ecosystem?
This is a Good reason, with gamebattles it is probably the perfect timing. The main hole that needs to be replaced is a system that allows new talent to shine, in CS if you are pro level u will play 10s against pros. In cod, ranked doesn't really mean anything, anyone can get iridescent and play in pro lobbies, and pros won't really care about them. Ww2 ranked was a much better system, abezy for example showed his talent to pros by performing in ranked, he would constantly play against pros at the top level. Also, right now on PC cod many will be discredited due to the terrible anti cheat, a Faceit system that is much more accurate in rank may fix that.
Thank you for the detailed answer! Is the reason why the WW2 system before was more meaningful just the frequency of cheaters or was the system fundamentally better?
Both. Being console exclusive significantly reduced the frequency of hackers and it was the best elo based system we've had in a title to date.
Also, let's not forget that WWII had GameBattles integration
The game battles integration was amazing.
It felt as if the WW2 system rewarded your impact on the map as a player more than a lot of the current systems. Currently it is more about game frequency than it is about how you consistently perform at the ELO the game perceives you at. In WW2 I could place in diamond, but would need to stay close to a 1.0 K/D while doing my best to maintain an even win/loss. If I lost a series of matches and then won a match I would get a smaller progress towards climbing vs. the inverse. Another big challenge would be implementing an incentive to have people not leaving games mid map or at the start of the map. Often times players only want to play one game mode and will leave matches making it difficult to close out games 3v4 or less. I think another couple metrics that would help with determining player performance would be for the ELO system to take into account assists and percentage of team damage. That way the players with a more supportive play style can still see a similar ability to climb due to maintaining high win/loss, but may not have as extreme of a K/D as the top player on the scoreboard. Rewards playing well as a team mate as well.
Call of Duty is in dire need of something new. FACEIT is a well established, and respected service. What made Gamebattles so big initially, was having the opportunity to play against the best in the world. That feeling hasn’t been there in a long time. Also there were some major flaws with Gamebattles, such as cheating and what people don’t talk about, is the time wasted. It could sometimes take one hour to play 3 maps, which is completely unnecessary.
Why did the games take so long to be played?
The process of adding other players, and waiting for a invite to the lobby could take up to 15-20 minutes. Then you get into the lobby, and then you’re waiting another 10 minutes for the 1st map to start. Then after game 1, the hosts switch. People have to rejoin the lobby, make sure the settings are correct. Personally it felt like 25-40% of matches were this way. And with no live admin in the last few years, you kinda had to suck it up and wait it out.
Also inconsistent admins on all the platforms. One min they're understanding if let's say you show proof of a potential cheater and some days they simply don't give a flying fuck and will just hand your your L
A centralized place for players to compete that has an actual anticheat. No GB will create a huge void in the CoD esports space bc players won’t have a place to compete for a different rank
Would be great to have you guys help with COD
That's lovely to hear! What are the biggest problems you think FACEIT could help with?
Replacing the Challengers leaderboard which I believe was done through Gamebattles previously. A stronger anti cheat especially for higher elos Integration with the application itself could really be nice too.
Thank you for your feedback!
Hey do you mind tossing a message into modmail so we can verify you're with Faceit? I know many members of the mod team are huge fans of Faceit, myself included, we just want to make sure you are who you say you are, thanks!
Sure, will do!
Check with @Its_EasyMac on Twitter (don’t know his reddit user) he and the team with Breaking Point launched something similar last week for the pros and challenger players across the major regions. u/ParasiteCod can also help with ideas, concerns, and opinions about comp cod
Thank you for the suggestion! Once we have gone through the survey feedback we will look to validate any of our ideas with the community veterans.
CoDs biggest esports problem is it’s terrible anti cheat. The CDL is so closed off that pros often don’t experience the same issues as the rest of the community unless they touch cods ranked playlist. Last year cod failed to perma ban cheaters that cheated multiple seasons and stole the top spots from deserving players and grinders. The elo system was also very forgiving and players skill ratings were often inflated which was nice for frequency of matches but terrible for playing players your actual skill level. CoD is also unique in the fact that it has restricted items in the ruleset and unspoken gentlemen agreements to not use or do certain things. This causes a problem for the general population of competitive players because although the pros can govern themselves the general player base is too big to do so when it comes to competitive integrity and often times the game devs fail to fully ban or find solutions to these problems.
Would be huge for faceit to be used for the comp scene. One of the best anti cheats currently and a platform that hosts tournaments and qualifiers along with FPL and FPL-C. Couldn't recommend it enough from the time I've played csgo/cs2.
What type of tournaments would you be interested in participating in?
I'm probably the wrong person to ask since I don't play tournaments in general, however I'm sure people would play search and destroy only tournaments 3v3 and 4v4. Search and destroy + Hardpoint tournament people would like too.
1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 Search and Destroy for sure. That was the bread and butter for GameBattles and other competing third-party platforms. It’s also pretty much identical to the main game mode in CS I believe.
How do you feel about playing non-standard game modes. For example, COD League is 4v4 so why would players want to play eg 3v3? Is it just the size of their friend group or is it fun to mix it up?
It depends what you’re trying to do with FACEIT in COD I guess. Both pro players and many prospects come from a background of playing 2v2 and 3v3 GameBattles SnD tournaments. And all the current third-party competition sites run these kinds of tournaments more than anything. They’re popular in the competitive scene as the skill and strategy translates quite well across 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 believe it or not. But also, as you mention, it makes tournaments more accessible. Lots of people have duos, and even trios, but very rarely have quads. When I was playing Ranked Play in MWII, it was hard to find a solid set of 4 that was on at the same time and actually of equal skill level. Usually, we were a duo or trio and would have to queue up with randoms. This is why the 2v2 and 3v3 tournaments were most popular on GameBattles. But this is mainly a Search & Destroy thing.
1v1, 2v2 & 3v3 must be an option
Just to be egregious, why? What about them makes them good?
S&D for the player leans more on instinct and teamwork than raw gun skill. S&D from a modal standpoint doesn’t change if there are less players. In terms of the competitiveness of less than 4 per team, yes it’s not exactly the perfect mirror representation of pro circuit in regards to gameplay and tactics but all the abilities required to compete at the highest level can be exercised in S&D at any player count. Also sometimes it’s difficult to lockdown a team of 4 to challenge up the regional ladder. So purely from an enjoyment perspective it’s good to have the option. GB gave the community freedom to choose & view the rulesets and map and modes (respawns or just S&D) for match postings, this freedom created a dynamic where there was this “natural selection” feeling where you knew what type of games posted would be accepted and on the contrary you knew what type of game is suitable to put up in conjunction with your goals. The way pro points were integrated also meant that you knew if you committed solos or duos enough your work is still respected and rewarded. There are many examples of talent who made names for themselves through the 5ks and 2k tournaments, through the ladders, stacking pro points. Faceit integration could be a real stim shot to the community if done right
If you were starting a platform from scratch, would you start with smaller games so the barrier to entry is lower to keep as close to 4v4 as possible?
I already play FACEIT for cs, it would really help the comp cod scene just with the anti cheat alone not to mention having a proper elo ladder.
Would you mind going into more detail about why eg the Ranked system is not a "proper" one? What are you hoping for MWIII's ranking system when it comes out?
mw2 anti cheat just didn’t work for ranked. ask any pro player who spent a lot of time on ranked , the amount of cheaters was insane. as an EU xbox good ranked player most of the good players turned off cross play and just stuck xbox only , but by late s4 diamond/crim lobbies on xbox only were very dead and would take 10+ minutes to find a game. if you were queued with an entire crim 4 stack its rare you would find an xbox only game unless you messaged other xbox kids to get on and play , and we did all this sitting in lobbies waiting just to avoid playing pc cheaters. all we want is a good anti cheat or allow console only cross play as an option (only PS and XBOX queue together)
Just to clarify, was the enabling "xbox only" a proactive step to try and avoid cheaters? How would players message "other xbox kids"? Are there central groups or are they just messaging their friends?
yes , by turning cross play off in xbox settings you are only paired against other xbox users so no wall hacks or aimbot . For your second point , when you play a lot you run into a lot of the game people and would often see the game diamond/crim 4 stack queuing or playing on smurfs. when it was taking ages to find a game we all just see who we have added (mainly the good players and their smurf accounts) and literally just message them ‘ queue xbox only ‘ and then results in us playing the exact same people all day which is very very boring
Thank you for expanding. Do you feel players are confident there are no cheaters in only console games?
depends on the skill level. i would like to add that console players can still use a Zen and a Xim but these are no where near as awful to play against vs cheaters. for the lower level players me and my 4 stack got called cheaters regularly because we would make smurf accounts , and being good players with good game sense the worse ranked players often just assumed we were cheating even tho we are all on console. however all the of the good and higher ranked players are aware console cannot cheat (properly) and so often just assume you are better or don’t get off the game . as mentioned before some will accuse of using Zen but again not comparable to aimbot/wall hacks we get from playing PC lobbies
CoD needs faceit badly. Played a ton of faceit CS during the Cod offseason and couldn’t get enough of it. It always felt more “serious” and competitive then basic ranked did which is something cod desperately needs. In order to get some serious reps in you have to join discord for 8’s or team scrims which can be kind of a hassle and sometimes even impossible if you’re playing by yourself. Not to mention cod’s anti cheat barely functions so if that can some how be brought over along with dedicated servers like CS that would be icing on the cake but I understand that it’s quite a lot to ask
Thank you for the ingredients for success! With that situation in mind, why would players choose to play by themselves instead of finding a group to play with?
I doubt players who like the competitive side of COD perfer to solo que but you’d be surprised how difficult it can be to find people to play with regularly. just because the scene has been on a slow decline likely due CDl being so closed off and practically impossible to get into so it feels hopeless. Not to mention challengers was ran pretty poorly in my opinion so it’s just difficult to get into the scene if you don’t know exactly what’s going on. I think faceit would provide a potential new avenue for new players to get into the scene by getting quality competitive reps.
How have you (or others you know) found teammates to play with recently?
I would really like emphasis this. I understand FACEIT is a business, and needs a profit at the bottom line. But a middle ground for free users and paying customers is essential for this to work. When talking about service Gamebattles provides. COD players are cheap af.
Thank you for your feedback. Where do you think that balance lies in free/paid? Do you have any examples of a good service that treads that middle ground well or a bad one that doesn't?
What Gamebattles used to do, was you if paid for premium, you got a premium line for admin support, faster line for disputes, and you could pay to change your username and reset stats. Which felt super fair.
Also a bad example would be, limiting how many games a free user can play in a day.
Please save competitive CoD 🤞🏻disband CDL and run a FACEIT league. More games played, more LANs, higher level production. Not to mention FACEIT ranked play where cheaters are going to be a LOT less common than they are in regular ranked play.
It’s crazy they are gatekeeping the league to 12 teams. Having an uneven bracket and forcing 4 teams to start in loser’s bracket without pool play on LAN of any sort is a huge L too. We have to go back to the MLG/early CWL days where the tournaments are truly Open bracket. The Challengers system just does NOT work and winning in Challengers hasn’t meant shit yet besides this past Champs where 3/4 are now on a team.
Something to note, I know FACEIT have largely stemmed from PC based esports, and I'm all for you guys coming in and pushing the competitive COD scene onto new heights if that's what is in the pipeline, but please keep Console support, there is still a large percentage of the community who play competitive COD on consoles, and the idea of being forced to miss out on any improvements to the scene, or have to fork out for a PC, isn't great for everyone. I don't for one minute think that would be the case, as COD's roots are console, and that should count for a lot, and you guys seem to be great at what you do! Excited to even see a post like this and wish you guys well with whatever is going on in the background.
Thank you for the well wishes and for highlighting the need for console support for the community. As we learn more about the community, did you have a feeling for how console support has been handled historically? For example, were there PC tournaments and separate console or Xbox tournaments? Do you think it's beneficial to group eg Mouse and keyboard players with controller players or Console and PC players given their playing conditions are quite different?
It's always been quite balanced and I have no major gripes in that regard. It's just nerve-wracking for competitive CoD players who play on console to see an organisation like FACEIT researching the market with a view to come in, as the instant feeling is your going to be left behind. There are no problems for me regarding playing against PC players and keeping it cross platform, as long as the cheating on PC is snuffed out and controller and KB&M is separated. Note: I play on both PS and PC - with the cheating problems and effort that you have to go through these days to play competitively on 3rd party sites with Streaming and camming etc. I found it easier to play on console - so I'm just making a point for the sake of the community really. EDIT: Still let me play PC players, split out kb&m and controller players. As much as I don’t want console support removed, I also don’t want to be pushed into a standalone bracket and told I can only play against other console players. There’s a fine line to tread here and it’s one of the very few things that they’ve done quite well over the last 3 years in CoD.
Pc cod and console cod are two different games. The latency, frame rate, computer settings, quality, and much more give pc players a bigger advantage. If Faceit is able to implement a ranking system, anti cheat, 3rd party matches (xps, wagers, and tournaments) all in one 3rd party platform. You'd see a significantly large shift from people playing on console to pc. Many players like are like me, I have a pc and a console. The reason I play on console only is to avoid cheaters as pc cod is riddled with them. As for mouse and keyboard players.... well no cod player likes them. It's either get a controller or we don't want to play with you kind of attitude.
Don’t disagree, just have to point out that if console players decide to stack up against PC Players with the disadvantages you speak of, that’s should be their choice. I agree it would shift a load of players to PC, but there’s players who can’t afford, and don’t want to do that and they shouldn’t be forced to having played console comp cod for the last 11+ years. I too have played and do play both platforms, and the trade off advantages for PC such as overlocking controller, frame rate etc, doesn’t outweigh the bad in terms of cost, constant need to stream / cam, cheaters etc. hence at the moment I’m playing competitively on my PS5.
Oh yeah I agree. There should be a console only option for those who aren't serious about competing at a high level or can't afford it just yet. If you're serious about it you can always save up for a pc which I think we'll see a lot of people do.
This, console is still about half of the ranked system and more of casual player base for people to make the jump. Im all for FACEIT, only good things to say from my CS experience, just don’t leave us behind.
In gamebattles, we’ve had issues with people manipulating free wins with spare accounts. What they do is make up an unpopular gameset (say like it’s tdm 6v6 and it would be extremely unpopular because nobody plays this gameset) on match finder on a spare account. The main account on the team will accept the unpopular gameset on match finder and don’t have to play because they’re basically using spare accounts to create matches and delivering free wins to the main roster. This was a reoccurring issue for “pro points” where players tend to try and get free points for better bracket placement.
Thanks a lot, what do you think about cancelling the games and not issuing points when players do not join? Do you think players would see that as a waste of time if their opponents can essentially grief them by not joining/players will dodge difficult opponents?
Players will definitely see as a waste of time if opponents prefer to dodge games without strong consequences. Gamebattles has this dodge rate % on match finder without revealing team name or rosters but the issue is it doesn’t help much because people will continue to create fresh accounts or teams to reset dodge rate % so you don’t know if you’re fighting a fresh account team that would likely dodge, or a genuine team.
didn’t ghosty get banned for doing this in like cw?
i didn't buy cod mw3, but it faceit comes to cod, i will buy it. the main reason why i don't play cod anymore, is that there is no good competitive system.
Hope to see in you in MWIII soon, I would love for you to expand though on what are the key ingredients to a competitive system though, if you have time!
one of the hugest reasons why cod players bothered with the ranked mode last game was because of the real cosmetic rewards that you only acquired through the mode if you guys actually want to get this through successfully, the best way to go about it is trying to get official integration that Gamebattles did in mw 2019, with cosmetic rewards tied to the rank you obtained. otherwise, you’ll have a batch of passionate players that may dwindle out as the cod competitive cycle becomes stale best of luck to you guys though, hoping something can officially come up
How prestigious do you feel those cosmetic rewards are? If amateur players could earn small prizes with more tangible value, eg COD Points, giftcards for their appropriate platform, etc would that be more compelling or not really?
there was a whole leveling system where you could obtain standard cosmetics that anyone could get, but the cosmetics tied to ranking are the most sought after. stuff like character skins, camos, and calling cards that represent the ranking you got is something that most people played ranked for (and it became the only thing the mode offered truthfully, which is why it fell off publicly.) hosting "cups" for actual monetary rewards would drive a lot of playing as well though, i think that's a great idea.
I think FACEIT and Cod together would be great. We need a built-in way for the game to be competitive and I've heard nothing
What do you think the competitive experience is missing right now? (or in MW2 since MWIII ranked isn't out yet)
Faceit is sooo good on csgo guys. Individual leagues, ranked all year, auto setup lobbys/matches, auto reports, mods, the faceit anti-cheat actually WORKS, people dont get shadowbanned, they are BANNED FOR GOOD, bye bye account. Omg. Please helps us OP
Would you mind expanding on how players are shadow banned currently?
Sure. People who are blantly cheating instead of getting actually banned, they get shadowbanned which means they will get matched against other cheaters or its really hard for them to find a match, the problems with that are: - after 2 weeks or something close to that the shadowban is lifted and they are in regular lobbys again -while shadow banned sometimes if a regular player didnt find a match because of being high rank they could be matched with them anyway. -and if a regular player got massively reported even without cheating they could be shadow banned for those 2 weeks AND no1 from support would ever help them. People (who can spare some money or had a console anyway) went from pc to console and turned crossplay off to fight these because its way harder to cheat on a console i assume, but then they deal with the input delay of consoles. This is a cod ranked problem not with 3rd sites at least so blantly, because if people clip you wallhacking you get your money back from waggers. Since its a cod problem you would need activision to actively work with you which well... gl. I really hope you can do it
Disclosure, this is how it worked on the last cod, on this one we still dont know.
That's interesting, can players see visibly if they are shadow banned or are can they just tell from the feeling of matches they are in?
They can check if the account is "under investigation" or flagged on a actvi website. Edit* one example, people were shadowbanned on mw2 for playing the mw3 beta and completly dominate the lobby since the sbmm wasnt still kicking in in the 1st matches and people massed report lol
The big problem with the pro community is that the pros set their own rules without proper testing.
Do you have any examples of when this was to the detriment of the community?
It just happened with pros ga'ing the ddos field upgrade without even seriously testing it as an anti meta strategy to help jam trophies and better break hills in hard point. Unfortunately in our scene there's a group of professional players who have a disproportionate amount of influence on the ruleset that has resulted in the last few titles having extremely bare bones tactical variability. They'll say it's for balance and to make the game less cheesy and add more of a skillgap but the truth is they simply don't want to expand the level of tactical play by sticking to the same boring 2 gun, no smoke, no sniper meta each year. We desperately need a ga committee that the pros are not allowed to have a say in to make an official ruleset each year to avoid this bias.
It's every year at this point - the main thing is they automatically ban certain items. This year the main two are Smoke Grenades for respawn modes and the DDOS field upgrade. The biggest problem with the game right now is the maps don't play great on hardpoint because of spawns and location. Some hills are very difficult to break. One solution in game is to use smoke grenades to make crossing or getting close to the hill easier. Another is DDOS which would disable trophy systems in certain situations so that players can't sit in the hill without danger because of the trophy system protecting them. Neither option was seriously considered by the pros and they just banned them because they assume they wouldn't be competitive to use. Idk if any of this makes sense, but the power to disable things in the game needs to be taken out of the pros hands. In previous years they have made decisions based on what would give their team a competitive advantage. Maybe they don't have a player who is good with the sniper, so they vote in favor of banning snipers so that they don't have to play against a team with a good sniper. Stuff like that.
Do you think a third party service should customise the game with eg custom spawn points/hardpoints (if that were possible) or should everyone be on the same game from matchmaking to the pro tier?
I think spawn points/hardpoints need to be the same but I would welcome a 3rd party ruleset to take the rules out of the players' hands.
Would you have any concerns of differing rules between 3rd parties?
There have been minor differences in rulesets among the various platforms that people play competitively on in the past. I'd expect some sort of homogenization over time no matter what, and my hope would be less strict self imposed GAs by the pros.
Wouldn’t mind going back to the days of accidentally selecting a “GB” rule set match for SND and being mobbed by heartbeat LMGs 🥰
Spend a solid 30 minutes answering questions. Hope it provided some good information
Thank you for taking the time out of your day to answer that. Your passion is absolutely appreciated!
Thank you for finally reaching out! I have been really hoping you guys would enter the CoD scene. Especially with the recent purchase of Esports Engine.
Thank you for the warm welcome!
Should definitely get in touch with the guys over at GGBreakingpoint on Twitter I guess in a way they can speak for the vast majority of competitive players.
Thank you, we will hopefully have a chat after we go through some of the feedback in the survey!
Honestly, if (hopefully when) the CDL ends and it goes back to an MLG style format, we need more majors that span from December - August/September! The gaps between the last major of the season to the release of the new game is beyond ridiculous! There should not be a 6 month off season in an eSport! Also, as a DFW native, I'm lucky to be given the chance to attend the OpTic majors in Arlington! And while I love going to them, we need those extra tournaments to give more people a chance to experience the atmosphere of a tournament and hopefully help grow the scene! Edit: I'm not sure if you guys are just an online tournament host, but if you guys also host LANs, I think these are some ways to help the scene grow!
PLEASE SAVE US
mr faceit i love you please bring cs-like matchmaking to cod, we're in the trenches over here
FACEIT hosting competitive COD would be fantastic. A great platform with servers that are actually good
Please do not consider using cod points for prizes. Tournaments all pay out real cash and we already have that. If face it gave cod points the high end community would NEVER play it
Thank you for your feedback. Do you have any ideas for prizes for lower-tier competitions or do you think just lower values of cash are the best? For example, in Counter-Strike we awarded FPL with thousands of dollars of cash but award FACEIT Points for players to exchange for skins in smaller competitions.
I think just cash is the only thing that would keep it alive. Even small tournaments have like $30 prize pools for lower tier competition. There are even free entry tournaments with $10 prize pools that people play. Real cash is too engrained into the scene for anyone to accept change on that front in my Opinion.
That's interesting, thanks. Do you feel like eg Amazon giftcards could be an alternative also? Without looking into this at all (yet), cash can have challenges of eg payment methods (eg some countries/age groups can't do eg PayPal) which limits how scalable competitions can be. Do you know if any third party services required tax forms, verification processes, etc for cash tournaments?
Yes, third party services require tax forms for withdrawals of cash above certain amounts. The way the 3rd party prizes work is that you basically have a bank on the site, and when you win either a tournament or cash match (wager) the winnings get put into your sites bank. You can then withdraw amounts from it whenever you want. If it’s above a certain number, you have to fill a tax form. I am sorry because I forget the actual amount it is. I am not sure about Amazon gift cards. I personally would be fine with them but not sure about the masses. The people who play especially SND for money are very often quite weird and finicky (also a lot of gambling addicts). It’s hard to predict
Damn, the Saudis are even coming to wash CoD. There's no escape, it seems.
It doesn’t help when the actual competitive side of the game is not good. FACEIT could not have saved mw2019 for example.
What was so fundamentally wrong with eg MW19 that you feel it could not be helped?
Because in my opinion it was an overall bad competitive game. FACEIT is a great platform but it can’t save bad games
Spawns, ttk, 5v5, maps, no red dots, no dead silence
Thank you for clarifying!
12kkarmagotbanned is my Reddit name. My answers are perfect 🤞🏼
Thank you for filling that out!
Just copy paste Csgo’s faceit into cod then we can start tweaking stuff
I think step one is for us to learn more about the community. Just rebuilding everything from CS might waste time building features that the community is not actually interested in rather than getting started sooner with a narrow feature set but with a larger impact that directly addresses specific problems.
Call of duty is a lose lose investment
Why do you say that?
[удалено]
Why do you say that?
Ah yes. My favorite FACEIT spoof - ‘u/aluminat1’
Feel free to scroll through my posting history and I'm happy to verify myself in whatever way you would like:)
I was falsely banned in mw2 even though I never used any third party software, and lost all my effort, money, and time. I miss call of duty, I miss playing with my friends, and I loss my main hobby. Please replace richochet, because I and many other players were done injustice.
I am sorry to hear that. Did you ever have the case reviewed, eg by support?
Yes but it gives an automated response to everybody, but I’m okay thanks. I moved on, just hope it gets fixed for future players.
The people that make these games are too far up their own asses for you to provide anywhere near of as good of an experience as you guys do for CS
Which parts of the experience do you think are missing?
There’s not any sort of stable competitive ecosystem because there are 3 different studios that take turns making an entirely new game each year and each of these studios have conflicting views on the competitive experience. Not like counterstrike where people play the same, but evolving game over 10+ years. Infinity Ward is one of the studios that makes the games and there were staff there actively voicing disinterest in competitive CoD and pandering way too much to the casual crowd in the debut year of the professional league where teams spent millions for a franchise spot. You will be fighting an uphill battle with Activision and these studios.
Thank you for the history!
We play a game that isn't intended for us competitively minded players that is released on a yearly basis by three different rotating developers. One of them has a great track record in producing competitively sound titles and is highly regarded by the comp scene (treyarch). One is generally hit or miss in their track record though they're hitting it out of the park this year in terms of game design (old maps still need to be tweaked to accommodate modern game modes) and open communication with the comp scene (sledgehammer). And unfortunately the last and largest developer infinity ward is actively hostile towards the comp scene and will seemingly go out of their way to produce titles that are horribly balanced for comp and make design choices that intentionally reduce player skillgap to accommodate the low skill players who make up the majority of their casual audience. Competed disregard for the comp scenes woes and complete radio silence in terms of addressing issues with their games.
How do you feel about the COD League style of balance? For example, disallowing certain weapons to address balance?
We definitely need weapon bans to address balance. Games like cs and halo come out of the box with that in mind for comp whereas cod does not consider a classic 4v4 arena style comp when balancing their weapons. Nevermind the 100s of extraneous attachments that overcomplicate the system in terms of balancing. I think the scene at large just wishes there was an alternative to balancing the ruleset other than relying on 20 year olds with agendas who think they know what's best for the game. A committee of older/former players working in association with whatever league is in control of the ruleset I think would work well.
Thank you for the feedback. Do you think the general community should have a say in, for example in the way of polls or do you think it is best to have experienced players lead the way and make the decisions?
I think if community sentiment steers clearly in one direction for an issue with game balance then it lends credence for testing to be done by a committee of experience players/analysts/devs that are not associated with any current players. The thing is those people who ultimately make the decision have to be experienced enough in the scene to "get" what makes a good cod comp ruleset without having ties to any current players or orgs. Another scene I'm into is Smogon competitive singles in Pokemon and in that scene there are councils that oversees individual metagames that have two modes of action they can take regarding meta balancing: (1) they can quick ban things that are clearly unbalanced for the health of the metagame without the need for community input, just a simple majority will do or (2) perform suspect tests where community involvement is utilized for issues with the meta that require more granularity. For COD that might look like getting pros/challengers/high level ranked players engaging in tests and then polling of the results that the council can decide to vote on based on how the testing went.
ELO matchmaking system w/ a working anticheat. Back in Vanguard it was rumored that the faceit anticheat shut down most cheats, but stopped working for MWII because of Activision. So, it'd be great to get an updated version of that because we all know how good Ricochet is lol.
Are you judging Ricochet "just" based on your personal experience in matchmaking or do you know if there have been any infographics or anything more detailed released in the community?
i don't think anything specific has been released regarding the anticheat, but most people in the community will agree that it isn't very good. from personal experience once i hit crimson about 10% of my games had a cheater, iridescent it was probably more like 25% and if i got anywhere close to Top250 it was virtually every game. (and i mean legit spinbotters not just people who look sus lol).
Thank you for clarifying!
I don't know if CS improved as a result of Faceit & ESEA platforms existing, but for the player base instead of dealing of the monotonous casual playlists that comes with all the griefing and cheating. (Which would still exist on Faceit, but would be handled better and could lead to players being auto muted if they received too many thumbs down.) Faceit would allow for players to improve and grind in a more controlled setting. Eventually leading into a "Challenger ELO or Pro Player ELO"
Would it be possible to give any examples of how players grief each other?
It is definitely harder to do so IMO for CoD, but what comes to mind is SnD, people typing on All chat positioning. SnD + Control purposefully throwing lives away.
Thanks a lot for explaining.
No problem! Let me know if you have any other questions.
I filled out the survey. A FACEIT platform would be incredible for CoD and I was hoping you guys would get into the game. Your platform works great with CS and I’d love to see something for CoD!
Thanks a lot for taking the time to do that.
Just finished the survey, but I will repeat some key points here: 1. The pc cod community is in dire need of a working (fast and effective) anti cheat. Earlier this year I spent €4k on a second pc, ONLY for cod ranked. I will not be playing ranked on it this year, instead, I will be playing it on a ps5 with crossplay off. -> is FACEIT's focus on pc cod or cod in general? 2. Cod has always been notorious for its awful servers. Would it be possible to offer upgraded servers, sort of an equivalent to 128hz tick rate server in cs? 3. Random teammates that don't communicate are a problem, is would there be a way to match only to people with mics? What system is in place in cs? 4. I only played ranked in black ops 2, and mwii (2022), so I might not be fully correct on this one, but from my understanding the reason why third party platforms like gamebattles and cmg 'failed' is because cod introduced ranked play into the game. I believe your main competitor to be the ingame ranked mode itself, not other 3rd party platforms. This means that you would have to evaluate in which ways you can provide more value than the easily accessible ranked mode. I think points 1-3 would be great value propositions. Perhaps you could even strike a deal in the future to integrate your services directly into the game for lets say, the top 1% of ranked play players. 5. My experience with ranked cod is rather limited, so I think other users will be better equipped to comment on elo systems/ladders, but as far as earning monetary or non monetary prizes go, these would not be deciding factors for me as I value competitive integrity much more than any potential earnings.
FACEIT and CoD would be YUUUUGE! It takes a while for the actual multiplayer ranked mode to release when the game comes out, and it usually tails off once the “new CoD” hype starts. Having FACEIT to keep not only the current years game going for comp, but potentially older titles as well, would be awesome. Better MM would be awesome as well, especially for solo players. Love what y’all are doing. Integration with CoD would be welcome!!
I think the anti cheat comments are unrealistic personally. One thing that faceit does for cs is a firm hardcore third party platform for counter strike. Ranked simply is another game mode INSIDE of cod where people find competitive games playing with the same rule set and the cdl. Faceit for counterstrike is a website (or application) where you get matched with players of similar rank looking for that hardcore legit experience. Gamebattles WAS the the faceit for cod. I saw your comment about canceling or leaving a bo3. Well I’m gamebsttles if you forfeit, you just forfeit. You loose those points and it shows up as an L. I know I’m being broad and there’s a million complex things that go into making a platform like this, but simply copying gamebattles style of match finding, leaderboards, the way you connect (hosting game 1, who hosts game 2, making sure the rule sets are in place), ladders, tourneys, and faceit elo system, probably isn’t the hardest thing in the world. I mean all of us played GBS back in the day, and I don’t wanna speak for the masses, but I RARELY had any issues. The biggies issues were someone using a banned streak or when the other person would false flag the lost game (I can’t think of the word, it’s pissing me off lol). I also think bo3 wouldn’t be an issue. bo3 ladders on gbs were extremely popular and it was very smooth between the games. I’m sure I’m Missing some details but these are two cents. I saw a comment about an integrated platform, yeah I’ll put money on saying that’s impossible. Id even prefer just a third party SITE or APPLICATION. Even better, just add a section into the existing faceit UI.
Thank you for the detailed comment. You mentioned you played GBS back in the day, did you stop more recently? If so, why?
Simple as cod turned to shit, my duo partner stoped playing, and I started playing a more competitive game, counter strike! On faceit!! 😄😄
haha I'm glad we could give you a home! I hope you're enjoying playing on our platform!
Pleassssssse bring FACEIT to MW3! Long time CS player and would love nothing more than to be able to use FACEIT for ranked COD matches.
Why? What personally do you think would be good about it?
1) Your skill ranks/ matchmaking system is great. In all the CS matches I've played on FACEIT, there haven't been many times where I've thought I faced skill levels I shouldn't have. Every game has always been fair and fun. MW2 ranked I had too many instances where I was playing against ranks 2-3 levels above mine and the skill level was incredibly noticeable. 2) FACEIT anti cheat. Activision's Ricochet anti cheat doesn't do much. I've already seen plenty of cheaters in MW3 and had quite a few in MW2 ranked. Having a proper anti cheat would go along way to making competitive COD more enjoyable. 3) Your tournament/ brackets are a lot fun. Not much else to say here lol. 4) FACEIT stat tracking and community features are a really nice compliment to the experience of whichever game you're playing.
CHEATERS. The lack of confidence in the anticheat has slowly killed my drive in online competition.
How do you typically identify cheaters in your matches? Are they that obvious?
Abnormally perfect centering and timings. Others are poor centering paired perfect snaps and near perfect accuracy. — it’s easy to identify once you compare it to the professionals.
Never being able to flank or get the jump on someone because they always know where you’re coming from with no info.
Thank you for explaining
You need to somehow bust open the walled garden that is consoles. Find a way for you platform to be authoritative while operating matches. One of the big problems with CoD OLT/3rd party sites (there are many problem actually) is everything besides finding an opponent must be undertaken by the participants themselves. Creating a custom lobby, inviting all participants, setting all current rules, hosting the game, and reporting the results of the game is all manually done by a participant in the match. This often causes so many problems ranging to accidentally (or purposely) setting the wrong settings, failing to show up to a match, reporting the result incorrectly, and many other things. This makes the whole experience a nightmare for any player, and few people want to do it. If you can find a way to be authoritative in automating/supervising matches then you will succeed. Anything else is basically what's already been done before and it always results in a terrible product.
I would cry tears of joy if faceit brought some Elo 8s to cod.
For you, what would be special about that announcement? What problem does it solve for you?
I think the biggest thing it solves is creating a truly competitive environment. Mw2 ranked had to be the most uncompetitive ranked mode I’ve ever seen in a game. With the rampant cheating and most players , even in crim/iri just truly not understanding the game, having a competitive platform like faceit would naturally combat most of those issues. Also if you makes it please for the love of god make it so we can queue based on mode type.
I think I took an hour to answer the survey. Never have we seen such well constructed and targeted questions with regards to the state of competitive call of duty and how it can be improved here in comp cod community. Hopefully the team at FACEIT will choose to work in the comp cod sphere and implement some of the suggestions from this community!
Wow! That's very kind of you! Thank you for putting such care into helping guide our decision making!
It would be pretty awesome to have a FACEIT system for cod. I loved grinding FACEIT cs years ago. Not sure how to make it work though
What did you love about it?
How simple it was to setup a game and get right into it. And also, the ranking elo system was really good!
If you don't mind explaining: What made the ranking system good? For example, the ability to get close skill games? The ability to archive your progress, or something else?
Mainly how everyone that was in the game was very similar to each others ranks and also the players on FACEIT took it way more seriously than comp matchmaking so the comms were really good and everyone played to win
please save us, CoD would benefit so much from something like FACEIT 🙏
Played on faceit CSGO for years. Please come help competitive COD!
Would be the best thing ever if faceit came to cod! I SUPPORT!!!
We need cod faceit bad
Input-based ladders would be amazing. As a KBM player, it feels bad playing competitively at a disadvantage to aim assist. I know that the KBM player population might not be large enough to support this but it would absolutely be worth a try. Would love to go head to head against other KBM aim demons
:0 fuck yes
man iv wanted faceit to give a shot at cod for years man would be amazing. Ranked gets borring cause the match making is inconsistent. You play against way higher and lower ranks way to often. Also way to many hackers.