Call of Duty Settings, Ranked & Anti-Cheat Terms

By Treesz · Updated Nov 2, 2026

This page covers four terms that players run into in the menus and in patch notes: how controller aim assist tracks targets, how the Quick Play filter picks your modes, how Warzone Ranked works, and what Ricochet does against cheaters. It is written for players on any platform who want to know what a setting actually changes and which game version a fact belongs to.

State of the game on 1 November 2026: Modern Warfare 4 launched on 23 October 2026, and Activision has dated Season 1 and the Warzone integration to 6 November 2026. Until then, Warzone follows its Black Ops 7 era rules, including the last Black Ops 7 ranked season. Matchmaking and ranked rules change by season, so treat numbers below as tied to the game and season named.

Term	What it is	Where it applies
Rotational aim assist	Automatic aim correction on controller	Multiplayer and Warzone
Quick Play filter	Mode picker for the Quick Play queue	Multiplayer
Warzone Ranked	Skill-division ladder	Warzone (battle royale or Resurgence, by season)
Ricochet	Anti-cheat system	All current Call of Duty games

Aim Assist Rotation

Rotational aim assist is the part of aim assist that helps a controller crosshair follow a moving target. It makes small automatic adjustments to your aim while you track an enemy who is strafing or crossing in front of you. Mouse and keyboard play has no aim assist.

What the Black Ops 7 patch notes changed is the most useful fact to know. In Black Ops 6 the strength at close range scaled up over a short distance. In Black Ops 7 the distance needed for full strength was extended, so you must keep the reticle closer to the target to get the full effect. Full strength now also depends on tracking with the right stick; if only the left stick moves, the assist is reduced. Treyarch also slightly increased assist at very long ranges, describing the goal as evening out controller and mouse-and-keyboard play. Activision's preseason notes add that the minimum rotational strength at launch was a 35 percent reduction compared with the beta. Treyarch also said it would look at rotational aim assist and controller strength in Warzone Season 1 to match Black Ops 7 multiplayer.

Practical use: aim assist rewards smooth tracking with the aim stick, and it does not replace aiming. The shooter aiming and gunplay glossary explains tracking and flicking in general terms.

Quick Play Filter

The Quick Play filter is a Call of Duty multiplayer setting that lets you choose which modes Quick Play can match you into. You tick modes such as Team Deathmatch or Hardpoint, and matchmaking only searches those. Activision's launch overview for Modern Warfare II (2022) described it that way: pick your modes, Quick Play searches for matches in them, and you can change the selection any time.

How to use it: open Multiplayer, highlight Quick Play, press the filter button shown on screen, and select or deselect modes. In Modern Warfare II the button was Square on PlayStation or X on Xbox; prompts vary by game and platform. One mode selected means you queue for that mode only. More modes means more lobbies to choose from and usually faster matches.

Black Ops 7 keeps a Quick Play playlist with a mode filter. At launch (14 November 2025) it also split playlists into Open and Standard. Treyarch said skill is only minimally considered in Open playlists and is an important factor in Standard ones, and most playlists were Open. In December 2025 Treyarch said the skill-based option would become more prominent from Season 01, so check the current patch notes before assuming how a playlist matches you.

The filter chooses modes, not maps, skill rules, ping or lobby quality. Re-check the list after each season update, since new modes and bugs can change it.

Ricochet Anti-Cheat

Ricochet is Activision's anti-cheat system for Call of Duty. It was unveiled in October 2021, with its backend arriving alongside Vanguard and its PC driver debuting in Warzone first. It has two layers: server-side tools that detect and disrupt cheating, and on PC a kernel-level driver. Activision states the driver monitors software that interacts with protected Call of Duty titles and runs only while one of those games is running.

Instead of banning only, Ricochet also uses mitigations that hurt cheaters during a match:

Mitigation	Effect	When it appeared
Damage Shield	Critical damage from the cheater's shots is disabled	Reported by 2022
Cloaking	Cheaters cannot see the players they target	2022, Vanguard era
Disarm	Takes away the cheater's weapons	By mid-2023, Modern Warfare II and Warzone 2.0
Hallucinations	Decoy players visible only to the cheater	June 2023
Splat	Cheater falls to their death	November 2023, Modern Warfare III

These dates come from news coverage rather than Activision changelogs, so the exact weeks may differ.

Recent updates. In Black Ops 7 Season 02 (reported on 2 February 2026), Ricochet added detections for input-modification devices such as Cronus Zen and XIM Matrix, which Treyarch calls cheating tools, plus cloud-based attestation with Microsoft that blocks tampered PCs before Ranked matches begin. TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are required for all PC players. A Ricochet report dated 18 September 2026 says the team had disrupted more than 375 reseller operations, issued more than 80 cease-and-desist demands and helped shut down 31 primary cheat vendors. The same post says the team counted more than 70,000 new hardware bans in the month before. On 2 October 2026 Call of Duty announced Server Culling for Modern Warfare 4: Infinity Ward built occlusion layers into the maps, and the server does not send an enemy's position to your game when you have no legitimate way to see them, so wallhacks have nothing to read. Activision says it covers every launch multiplayer map plus DMZ and Warzone. It targets wallhacks, not aimbots.

If you think an account was punished unfairly, see Shadowban and Hardware Ban. The cheats, mods and bans glossary covers the general terms.

Warzone Ranked

Warzone Ranked is the competitive playlist where your results move you through skill divisions. It launched in Warzone 2.0 with Season 3 Reloaded on 10 May 2023 and has been rebuilt each year, moving between battle royale and Resurgence maps depending on the season. The ladder has eight divisions: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Crimson, Iridescent and Top 250. Everyone starts at Bronze I with 0 Skill Rating (SR), and each match adds or removes SR based on placement and eliminations. Higher divisions charge a deployment fee in SR, so a poor match costs more the higher you are: Activision's Warzone 2.0 support page lists 80 SR at Crimson I and 110 SR at Iridescent, rising further above 10,000 SR.

Division	SR range (Warzone 2.0 ranked, per Activision support)
Bronze	0 to 899
Silver	900 to 2,099
Gold	2,100 to 3,599
Platinum	3,600 to 5,399
Diamond	5,400 to 7,499
Crimson	7,500 to 9,999
Iridescent	10,000 and above
Top 250	The 250 highest-SR players above 10,000

Thresholds and fees change between games, so check the ranked screen in your own client.

The current season. Season 6 is the last ranked season of the Black Ops 7 cycle in Warzone. It focuses on Resurgence, runs shorter than usual, and Activision uses it as a test: third-party coverage reports sharply higher deployment fees from Diamond up and disabled SR challenges, both aimed at SR inflation at the top, plus fewer weapon and attachment restrictions and launchers back in ranked. Ranked rewards are cosmetic: division skins, camos, calling cards and similar items, with the best ones reserved for Iridescent and Top 250.

Before Ranked matches on PC, Ricochet's cloud attestation checks the system (see above), and the Secure Attestation Wizard can confirm your PC is set up correctly. Pros also keep their own list of banned items; see Gentleman's Agreement below.

Related standalone terms

Shadowban: the community word for a suspected hidden restriction on a flagged account, as opposed to an announced ban.
Hardware Ban: a ban tied to the device rather than only the account.
Tier Skip: a Battle Pass item that moves you forward on the reward track.
Gentleman's Agreement: the unofficial pro-player list of banned weapons, perks and mechanics; the league does not enforce it.
Operator Kill: eliminating a human player rather than an AI-controlled one.

Common mistakes

Treating aim assist as a cheat. It is an official setting.
Using Cronus Zen, XIM or similar devices. Treyarch says they are not allowed.
Reading a ranked guide for an old season. Thresholds and fees change.

Guides and services

Our Warzone meta setups guide covers loadouts for ranked play. Onlyfarms also lists Warzone and Black Ops 7 categories.

FAQ

Does aim assist work with mouse and keyboard?

No. Aim assist is a controller feature. In Black Ops 7, Treyarch changed the rotational part so that it rewards right-stick tracking.

Can I pick maps with the Quick Play filter?

No. The filter chooses modes. Maps rotate within the modes you select.

Does Ricochet need TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot?

On PC, yes. Both are required for Black Ops 7 and for Modern Warfare 4, according to Call of Duty's official blog and Treyarch's Season 02 update.

What happens at the end of a Warzone Ranked season?

You keep the rewards earned for the highest division you reached, and your SR is reset lower for the next season. How far it drops has changed between seasons, so read the ranked notes when a new season starts.

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