Third-party Call Of Duty: Warzone apps have been forced to make significant changes to flag cheaters after they began abusing the tool to manipulate the game's skill-based matchmaking (SBMM).

Among its various analytical features, Warzone Companion attempts to flag cheaters by displaying the K/D ratio of all players in the lobby. However, this transparency also means that you can abandon a match if you feel there is an unfavorable player pool.

XSETgaming's Jared took to Twitter earlier this week to condemn the potential for abuse and stream sniping in tournaments, saying it "completely ruins the game."

COD Stats, the developer of Warzone Companion, told Eurogamer this week that a recent patch significantly changed the way the app operates. Player stats are no longer displayed until the end of the pre-match lobby, and various stats are now displayed as relative numbers rather than exact stats.

Still, this reorganization has somewhat weakened the app's ability to flag cheaters. There is demand for such a tool, and the creators of Companion are looking for ways to call out cheaters without providing too much information. [COD Stats owner Dmitry Shymko said, "Understanding the importance of the discussion, we decided to make changes to the app to eliminate places where all kinds of abuse can take place. Information about lobby players will only be displayed after warm-up, and lobby K/D averages will only be displayed at the end of a match."

"We believe it is still a good idea to leave at least some information about who are possible cheaters during warmup, but for now we want more feedback from our users and what they think about this option.

SBMM has been a particular sore spot for the Call Of Duty community, at least since the Black Ops Cold War Alpha. Companions may not have allowed players to avoid matchmaking altogether, but they did allow the cards to be stacked in favor of rounds at the higher end of the skill spectrum, while avoiding a spike in opponents' skills. While considerable micromanagement was required just to avoid bad matchmaking, the ultimate effect may have been somewhat exaggerated by the SBMM fervor that the Call Of Duty community is currently harboring.