MattScott 15242 Posted January 25, 2019 Hi all, Over the last couple days, a significant amount of accounts were banned. We do not normally acknowledge or discuss these bans, because it's a toxic behavior, and I believe the community is better off without it. However, my mods have had to deal with several posts about the issue, and I also believe in being upfront with the community when there is a situation. For context, I recently posted publicly that we were tracking a number of cheats/hacks and that we were working with BattlEye to detect and block them. Over the last couple days, many accounts were finally banned as we wrap up that process. This included two groups. 1) Accounts permanently banned based on company evidence These were all researched by my team so that proper evidence could be directly collected and added to their account. I do want to thank the many players who reached out with copies of cheats, videos of evidence, and the vast amount of /reports that were collected and processed by our analytics systems. All of these things helped us identify problem areas. Overall, this wasn't a lot of players, but it was a large amount of accounts. This means that we banned all or most of the accounts owned by the player caught cheating - not just the account they cheated on. We tried to be extremely careful and diligent about how this was done, but at the time you get caught, all your accounts can be banned. Clearly this came as a surprise to some players. For the most part, we do allow players to reroll and come back. But that is not a free pass to cheat, damage the experience of other players, while you play consequence free on your main. 2) Accounts temp banned based on new BattlEye detections We have been working diligently with BE to improve their ability to detect and block the latest round of cheats. We have seen a big jump in global BE bans. Per our policy these are initially implemented as temp bans which give my staff a chance to review them to make sure we aren't mass banning innocent folks. If you feel you have been banned unfairly, please make a ticket with support at https://support.gamersfirst.com. I know Support is still behind, and we don't want to make innocent players wait unnecessarily. @Selali has temporarily assigned some resources to review incoming tickets over the next couple days to try and address these as fast as possible without negatively impacting the rest of the players who have been patiently waiting for their issue to be addressed. We will do our best. But please be patient. Finally, I understand the temptation to make the game easier by cheating, but please don't. We continue to build out our internal systems, and over time they will get better and better. While you may get away with it for a while, you open the door to losing all of your accounts. A number of very unhappy players today learned that all their progress and even real money spent on the game was lost, and they wont be able to participate in engine upgrade or any of the other new content coming. For that I am deeply sorry. Thanks, Matt 48 35 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NotZombieBiscuit 3146 Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) "Don't worry guys. It was just my brother on my account. I swear I'm innocent on this reroll." Edited January 25, 2019 by NotZombieBiscuit 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
YumiSakura 86 Posted January 25, 2019 Great stuff, thank's for the explanation. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mitne 724 Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) Alright. Thanks for clarification. It kinda triggered me that nothing was said about it. People such as me who were false banned got overly paranoid (back then you could be banned "because" - everyone were labeled as "cheaters", even if game just randomly bugged them out in some strange area or FairFight just borked). We just got so much abuse from previous developer so we are sorry for that extreme reaction. Also good. The worst cases of cheaters are so-called "closets" - people who either cheat on other accounts and on main are "perfectly fine" or people who cheat and attempt to hide the fact of that. Edited January 25, 2019 by Mitne Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Nanometic 265 Posted January 25, 2019 Happy to hear you're tracking it back to their main accounts to properly punish them, golden, pure golden. 5 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TacticallyRed 49 Posted January 25, 2019 Nice work on your end, Matt! Keep it up! 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
LilyV3 323 Posted January 25, 2019 I feel sorry for the support and that upcoming mess to handle. Now all those cheaters will write a more or less crappy and soemtimes very adventurous ticket of how they were wrongly banned, got their account hacked or their brother using the cheat. On the other side yu could fill a evening with popcrn on those stories. GL with that LO. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Similarities 226 Posted January 25, 2019 Told you guys to be patient, something was coming. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Fenton 210 Posted January 25, 2019 Thank you for the feedback Mr Scott. It's good to see that something is being done, and that you are trying to be as fair as you can be about it. 14 minutes ago, NotZombieBiscuit said: "Don't worry guys. It was just my brother on my account. I swear I'm innocent on this reroll." Not an uncommon excuse. Sadly; It's up there with "Russians hacked my account". 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sadira 292 Posted January 25, 2019 Great post. Really appreciate the hard work from the team. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
OvermoderatedForum 71 Posted January 25, 2019 This is a perfect way to start the weekend. Much appreciation for the homies @ LO & BE and those who have been properly using /report 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iTzBlackout 139 Posted January 25, 2019 Awesome work! Thanks to the team and thanks for the post! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
owzzy 181 Posted January 25, 2019 This is good news! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kewlin 692 Posted January 25, 2019 I'm always kind of skeptical of banning "all of someone's accounts," seeming as there's literally no way of knowing who an account belongs to. I'm really curious what proof you have, but I know you obviously won't share it in fear of people abusing that knowledge. What am I saying though, we all know nobody has been banned because someone else hacked on the same IP or machine as them, right? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NotZombieBiscuit 3146 Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) 3 minutes ago, Kewlin said: I'm always kind of skeptical of banning "all of someone's accounts," seeming as there's literally no way of knowing who an account belongs to. I'm really curious what proof you have, but I know you obviously won't share it in fear of people abusing that knowledge. What am I saying though, we all know nobody has been banned because someone else hacked on the same IP or machine as them, right? Flashbacks to forum account mergers where one of the accounts on the list of accounts that were supposedly mine wasn't even mine. What if I said nothing? Does that person's account just get eaten by me? Or for in game how do they distinguish between people that play from the same house, such as couples? Would be the same IP, both accounts would get switched about between the two PCs. But what if only one cheated, is it fair to punish both? Edited January 25, 2019 by NotZombieBiscuit Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tigrix 308 Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, NotZombieBiscuit said: "Don't worry guys. It was just my brother on my account. I swear I'm innocent on this reroll." So when Matt posts about the issue with cheaters, it's not just another silver cryin' add it to the pile? Gj @LO Although i'd wish your policy was that a banned cheater was not welcome back. I know it's possible to spoof HWID's and IPs etc etc, but imo it's a matter of layers of trouble a cheater has to go through in order to cheat again and again. The more layers, the more trouble, the more trouble, the better for the legit community. Everyone understands you can't prevent cheating 100%, but layers upon layers of required bypasses once you been caught and proven a cheater once, is the best anti-cheat measures imho. (and I don't feel sorry for the cheater). Edited January 25, 2019 by Tigrix 5 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Y2Venom 219 Posted January 25, 2019 I was wondering what happened. There is a certain spooky clan that has a lot of new really good players tonight. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NotZombieBiscuit 3146 Posted January 25, 2019 Just now, Tigrix said: So when Matt posts about a bunch of cheaters getting banned, it's nost just another silver cryin' add it to the pile? I only post that in threads crying about how there is a infestation of cheaters. I don't deny that there is cheaters in APB, just that it is not as wide spread as many complain. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
vsb 6171 Posted January 25, 2019 a bit of good news, perhaps all the naysayers/whiners will be quiet for a while now that there’s public proof that accounts are being banned Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Thaumaturge 83 Posted January 25, 2019 (edited) 1 minute ago, BXNNXD said: a bit of good news, perhaps all the naysayers/whiners will be quiet for a while now that there’s public proof that accounts are being banned no dude xXkenSASHi475Xx is still playing, hes silver and I SWEAR he was spinbotting with an ursus dude......... u hAVE to believe me bro im GOLD... c,mon bro... he killed one dude at render distance CMON bro ADMIT it... this game is FULL of hackers...... some dude was sitting inside of a wall dual wielding osmaws dude.... - your average forum poster Edited January 25, 2019 by Thaumaturge Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NotZombieBiscuit 3146 Posted January 25, 2019 Just now, Thaumaturge said: no dude xXkenSASHi475Xx is still playing, hes silver and I SWEAR he was spinbotting with an ursus dude......... u hAVE to believe me bro im GOLD... c,mon bro... #BelieveAllHackusators 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
