Is using a VPN a bannable offense or considered cheating?

VPN
1

Basically I’m on Xbox so never tried it but I now have multiple friends on PC using a VPN who all swear by it. I’ve also matched with quite a few randoms on PC who also say they use them regularly now

My friends K/D’s are considerably higher than mine and they seem to get easier lobbies than I get when I solo queue or just play with friends who are also on console.

They claim it’s not bannable but it seems unethical - I understand the matchmaking in this game is nothing short of ass but it seems weird when they get into lobbies with enemies that don’t shoot back at them, a bit like many streamers seem too.

It got me thinking though, if so many people were to eventually start using a VPN then surely Activision might as well just remove SBMM if everybody starts just cheating their matchmaking system?

Thoughts? Surely it’s considered an exploit at least?

2

If you are using it to get easier lobbies, it’s boosting.

3

Pretty sure it’s not against terms of service but I could be wrong.

4

VPNs indeed increase your chance of getting easier lobbies, however it isn’t an exact science and it does not work for every lobby. People have been using it since warzone 1 came out, Activision does not consider it an exploit and using one is not considered a bannable offense.

5

Like everything in life…you need to ask yourself if you are taking an unfair advantage against others.

6

People don’t understand how VPNs work. There’s no such thing as VPNing to a “bot lobby.”

Instead you are just able to pick which servers you are connecting to. You can make an educated guess as to which server is going to have the least skilled players, but it’s all tied to region, not skill level.

You can assume that players in a certain region would be worse at the game, and that’s why someone would VPN to say, Oceania servers. “I bet everyone in this part of the world isn’t as good as where I’m from.”

You can VPN to certain regions during specific times of the day, to try and further manipulate the type of players you’re facing. “If it’s always 8:00 AM in the servers that I am on, maybe there will be less of demons at that time of day.”

What you cannot do with a VPN is select a server that isn’t tied to location, but skill level. I can play in Oceania servers on command, but I can’t select bad players on command.

It is worth noting that VPNing to servers across the world may get you easier lobbies… but your connection will be so much worse that it’s really not worth it. I’d rather play good players on 30 ping than absolute bots on 130 ping. You’re guaranteed to lag all over the place if VPNing super far away.

I have a VPN and the only thing it does for me is guarantee I get servers that are close to me. I’m tired of playing on 50+ ping across the country, so I got a VPN that guarantees I’ll be on either Utah or Texas servers, ~25-30 ping for me.

I think your friends might just be significantly better than you, and it’s not because of the VPN. If you don’t know what a VPN does, there’s a good chance you can’t tell the difference between a 30 ms lobby and a 50 ms lobby. My buddies who don’t play a ton can literally not tell when we connect to a bad server, but I feel it in every single gunfight and the second I start moving around.

If you can’t already tell that, you need to just improve at the game before thinking about taking these types of strides.

TLDR: A VPN, at this point in its usage, is only good for getting you good connection lobbies. There’s no such thing as a bot lobby that it can connect you to.

7

VPN for kids cannot play with real men.

8

I don’t understand the VPN. Why would connecting to a server in a different country giving you 100+ ping be a good thing?

9

I don’t think it’s against TOS but like you said it’s unethical. I personally don’t care if someone’s using it unless they’re doing it to get easy lobbies for a tournament or something

10

VPNs are basically spoofing your IP address, so that if you are cheating, you can basically hide information from Activision servers so Activision has to go through now your VPN service to get your hardware because instead of being actually where you’re supposed to be, which is either in America or the EU you are now putting yourself in a different country through a server circumnavigating your connection to get advantage of players this allows you to usually eat twice as much as normal and this is consistent with abusers

11

Bunch of ignorant narrow minded barbarics arguing

12

No its not cheating nor against terms of service

13

I mean, it depends.

For some people, VPNs do jackshit and they still get in sweaty lobbies. If anything, they claim that the VPN lobbies are harder than their avg ones without.

For Asia folks, back when ranked play came out for WZ2 you cannot queue for a game unless you use a VPN. If you want to grind ranked for the rewards, you have one choice and nothing else. If this problem happens again in WZ3, then people will do it again. Simple as that.

Some people have international friends that they want to queue with, and they use a VPN to help with the ping. Hell, some ppl just have bad connections in general and are using VPNs to help w reducing the lag in their own local servers.

Like, I’m not going to sit here and argue that using VPN for bot lobbies ( if it’s true that is; I’ve never used one, and won’t be using one unless Ranked play comes out and it’s just as fucked as the previous version ) isn’t shitty. However, there are also othe use cases for it, and it shouldn’t just be put into the ‘if you use this, you’re cheating’ category just because a group of ppl are using it to boost their inflated KD that means fuckall.

14

It is considered cheating by the general public, yes.

It is not a bannable offense. Plenty of Verdansk-era streamers openly used it.

It is not as effective anymore, though. warzone matchmaking has become less strict, so regardless of VPN you’re going to get a healthy mix of really good and really bad players every lobby.

15

It’s fine as long as you say you’re doing it. Going around an invisible mmr system that is overturned isn’t boosting. Just make sure you tell people bc they will know

16

No it’s not.

Feel free to checkout www.easygamevpn.com and get a trial access.
You will see it’s a give and take but overall more enjoyable.

17

Ahh I think that’s the term I was thinking of, thanks!

18

It’s crazy because I could argue that living closer to the servers is an unfair advantage that others have over me. Even with a VPN, my buddy who lives in Houston is always on 4 ping to my 32, which is 100% an unfair advantage he has over me. Is he cheating then?

19

That isn’t how the vpns that the streamers use work. They use vpns like nolagvpn. Nolagvpn basically tries to trick the game into giving you easier lobbies (if it still works). I forget the exact details but it causes the game to take longer to find a lobby to the point that it finally gives up finding you the perfect lobby and just sticks you in the first one it finds, skipping the sbmm matchmaking. When this happens, you still get in lobbies with your normal ping of 20-65ms. Again, I forget the exact details but I’m sure there are better explanations out there.

20

This isn’t how the COD VPNs work. They’re split tunneling and sending only the matchmaking traffic to COD, tricking the game into lessening SBMM and allowing more ping based connections. Ping will not increase with these services. They aren’t traditional VPNs like how you’re describing. Players aren’t actually connecting to the locations that they select and still play in local lobbies.