Reverse boosting in Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will get you banned

By Matt Martin

Players who “reverse boost” during Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be on the receiving end of a more vigilant banning policy, according to developer Sledgehammer Games.

“We have a low tolerance approach to people who ruin the experience for others through cheating, boosting, reverse boosting or being caught with toxic emblems in game.”

Some players deliberately kill themselves and trash their own stats during multiplayer matches, which results in the skill-based matchmaking placing them in lobbies with new players, which they then dominate.

It also results in fellow team members being penalised during team-based matches.

Sledgehammer’s own Michael Condrey has found himself playing with others who exploit the system, and it’s just one of the things he’s looking to swing the banhammer at.

“Playing at home, I’ve been randomly matched with players doing this and it’s incredibly frustrating to lose based largely on my team being down a contributing teammate,” he wrote on the official blog.

“No one wants to lose an objective based match by effectively being outnumbered while their teammate shoots grenades into their own forehead 100 times in the corner. It’s not right, and it hurts you and your team’s online experience. Call of Duty is both social and competitive, and we respect and honor that. Part of the competition that is core to our values is that players do not adversely degrade their team’s ability to compete fairly.

“It’s not dissimilar from the bans that cheaters and boosters receive, and we have increased our focus on reverse boost banning to combat the growing issue. No one is trying to restrict the fun factor of playing Advanced Warfare with this policy, nor are we actively banning against particular styles of play, like trick shots.

“However, we have a low tolerance approach to people who ruin the experience for others through cheating, boosting, reverse boosting or being caught with toxic emblems in game. We don’t like seeing any of these happen, and we’re pushing to eliminate these behaviors from the game.”

So don’t play like a prick. You have been warned.