'Call of Duty: Black Ops 4' Players Upset Over Suspected Server Downgrade

Talks of suspected Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 server downgrades have dominated community discussions over the weekend as players searched for answers.

Starting with several posts on the Black Ops 4 subreddit, a Redditor submitted a post that included a lengthy breakdown of the difference between the multiplayer servers seen in the beta and the ones players currently experience. While the servers operated at a tick rate of 60hz during the beta, the player said, the rate for the live servers is now only 20hz, one-third of what it was during the beta. Other players explained in separate posts that the higher the rate, the quicker the server updates to react to what players are doing. Lower rates can lead to inconsistencies between what players think they did or accomplished and what the game says actually happened.

That post was followed by another that offered a more condensed version of the problem and has climbed through the subreddit to receive more than 20,000 upvotes, but it's far being the only post that's looking for answers and a solution from Treyarch. Others shared what looks like it might be the start of a "daily reminder" series of posts that included a graph breaking down the lag of different Call of Duty and first-person shooter games. Those types of posts have spread to other subreddits as well with the controversy prompting multiplayer networking analysts Battle(non)sense to create a video that covered the topic.

Other discussions about other Black Ops 4 topics were derailed with players pivoting the conversations back to the server rate topic. Treyarch shared update notes on Saturday that included a list of everything new, but the top-rated comment was about the servers instead of the content changes. No replay from the official Treyarch account was provided, but the account does comment on different posts related to Black Ops 4, so it's hard to imagine that the issue hasn't been noticed by the developers.

Other players are approaching the situation from a more lighthearted manner while still bringing awareness to the server issue and lack of response from Treyarch, the latter being one of players' main frustrations with the situation. Another user shared their new Black Ops 4 Clan Tag that now says "20Hz" following the online discussions.

Reddit friends unite!!!! from r/Blackops4

The lower server rate doesn't mean that players have no hope of seeing improvements though. Overwatch, another Activision-Blizzard game, launched with a similar rate that was later improved. There's a chance that the same could happen for Black Ops 4, but Treyarch will likely issue some sort of statement soon to address the discussions.