Competitive first-person shooters are a haven for toxic behavior, especially because things can get heated at any moment. To curb toxicity, Activision has implemented a Voice Moderation system in recent Call of Duty games, notably Modern Warfare 3 and Warzone 2.0. That said, the company has divulged its findings about how the system performed since it was implemented in August of last year.
Moderation System a Success?
For context, the Voice Moderation system was first implemented in North America on August 30, 2023. Then, it was rolled out to more regions across the globe except for Asia.
Since it was implemented, the company was able to identify certain trends that aided in improving the system to combat toxicity. Apparently, only one in five players had reported others for disruptive behavior. This includes those who use hate speech or obscene language to communicate with other players. This, of course, is unacceptable, especially from a moderation standpoint.
To address this, the Call of Duty Disruptive Behavior team has made improvements to the system that automatically flags bad actors for further investigation. This is not foolproof, however, so the team still encourages players to actively report those who have been behaving improperly during matches.
Despite the system's shortcomings, the company still saw an 8% reduction in repeat offenders and a whopping 50% decrease in players exposed to severe cases of disruptive behavior. These indicate that the moderation system is somewhat useful in preventing bad actors from ruining the experience for everyone.
So, what are the punishments for players who are misbehaving during matches? For one, they are globally muted for a limited time, meaning, they are unable to utilize voice and text chat functionalities until their punishments have been lifted. Additionally, repeat offenders receive more severe punishments, preventing them from communicating with other people for a longer period.
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Moving Forward
While the company saw some positive outcomes from the implementation of the Voice Moderation system in Call of Duty games, Activision is committed to improving it in the near future.
Matchmaking Needs Improvement
In other news, Modern Warfare 3 players took to Reddit to voice their frustrations about the game's matchmaking system.
Redditor CBD212 said that the skill-based matchmaking system constantly pits them against "sweaty super COD players" in every game even though they are just an average player.
Another issue that was raised is that the system would occasionally put players in different regions together in a match, which results in very unreliable ping.
If Activision is indeed committed to improving its games, hopefully, the company will address these issues as well.
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