CDL Online Play Strikes Again, Players Speak Out

In the most recent home series of the Call of Duty League (CDL), hosted by the London Royal Ravens, we saw multiple issues with online play. This time the problems are based with the CDL ruling and server hosting and not the game itself, which is the usual talking point of pros.

In the match between London and the Seattle Surge, map 4 was a hardpoint match on St. Petrograd. Seattle was down 2-1 but it was possible they could make a comeback. Unfortunately, early into the game Josiah “Slacked” Berry had disconnected from the match, something expected in online play. The issue is, after the map ended, the CDL ruled it as a loss for Seattle with no chance for a replay. According to the CDL, the disconnect was an issue on the player-side and players are meant to play through that.

Sam “Octane” Larew, another player on the Surge took to twitter to vent his frustrations. He has since deleted these tweets and uploaded a YouTube Video discussing his issues with the CDL over the course of online play.

Server Issues Continue

Moving forward into the tournament all the way to the finals, we saw another issue when it came to online play. This was between the Paris Legion and the Dallas Empire. Paris was forced to play on a Texas server while most of their players are located in California. The distance of these players to the server ended up causing Paris players to have 100+ ping while Dallas players had perfect connection. The sheer difference in ping gave the Empire a huge advantage, letting them secure a 3-0 victory easily.

This is not to say Dallas only earned it due to ping, the team is one of the strongest in the League, currently sitting at second place with 240 league points. James “Clayster” Eubanks, a player on the Empire even pointed out this issue on Twitter.

Hey, we won, so I can’t get roasted for being salty, but it’s completely unfair that the server selections vs Paris are CA, TX, and IL. We veto CA ’cause they’re 4 CA, they veto IL because it’s the furthest away from all of them, and they’re stuck playing on a TX host. So unfair.

— Empire Clayster (@Clayster) July 19, 2020

With even the winners of the series acknowledging the flaws of online play, maybe we will see a real response from the league. If not, it is entirely possible that the issues will continue all the way to the championship.