NICKMERCS claims making CoD stats private creates "big problem" that only helps cheaters

Many games allow you to check not only your stats but those of other players, seeing how you measure up in kill/death ratio, or where you rank within your region or even globally, or how you perform with certain weapons on certain maps etc can all help you improve your game and make the grind that bit more enjoyable.

So popular is this that numerous websites have sprung up to serve up these stats for gamer's chosen title. The Call of Duty franchise is no different, however a recent change by Activision which made players stats private by default which means there are now gaping holes in these numbers.

Not everyone's stats can be viewed as they once were. (Picture: TrackerNetwork)

Which is a problem, at least in the eyes of Nick "NICKMERCS" Kolcheff, who believes having these numbers open to the public for scrutiny was one small way of combating cheaters; from those that use hacks to those that reverse boost (deliberately lose games) to get less competitive lobbies, not being able to access the stats of other players mean you can't easily investigate suspicious players.

"This is a big problem," mused NICKMERCS in his latest YouTube video. "Every site that we have ever used to track people's K/Ds to see if they were, indeed, actually a cheater is now not usable."

NICKMERCS feels Activision has made a mistake hiding player stats. (Picture: NICKMERCS)

It's created a problem that affects players of all levels. "If you match with someone and you want to check if they are cheating? Nah," explained Nick in his latest YouTube video.

"Want to see if someone is tanking their K/D before a tournament? -- Nah. If you want to hold people accountable for reverse boosting? -- Nah."

For NICKMERCS the last point hits especially close to home because people accuse him of reverse boosting in order to get easier lobbies and thus high kill games with the end result being more exciting content. For those that accuse him of being "one of 'em" he had just one thing to say:

"Give me the f**king proof. Where's the proof? Because everybody is just talking s**t with no proof. You are not gonna see a span of games where I am just tanking my K/D, you're not going to see any evidence of me actually cheating. None of that."

NICKMERCS has long called on Activision to do more to combat cheaters, and he recently revealed that he has stopped playing in Warzone tournaments because of the reverse boosting and IP routing that enables competitors to get easier lobbies.

• Read more: Warzone is flooded with cheaters and players can't handle it any more

Other than giving players reminders not to cheat Activision have done little to combat the prevalence of cheaters outside of legal action to tackle those that sell cheats.

Sadly their latest move has given made it even harder to catch and identify those that do cheat and it could start pushing players and content creators away for good.

You can hear NICKMERCS comments on Activision hiding player stats at the start of his latest YouTube video.