I’m curious how many people have been banned for using ironhawk? I know of at least two people who were banned as a result of playing long hours with Ironhawk and Dust Devil, fast repetivite games. One is VIP 9 level 1400+ and so pissed off he doesn’t even want to return, if his appeal were upheld. How many other people are sitting in the same boat?
I don’t believe anyone has been banned for using iron hawk. If you got video proof I’d be happy to admit I’m wrong. I don’t think you can get banned for coming up with awesome teams
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Ironhawk + dust devil + bot gets you banned.
I made this very clear in a different thread so I won’t rehash it here. But this isn’t a shock this is happening.
And I’ve yet to hear of anyone getting banned who was innocent ever in this game on PC/mobile. (that doesn’t mean players don’t get unbanned, it just means they weren’t innocent.)
Very rarely does someone who gets banned admit that they were cheating.
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I’m not going to stick my neck out and say 100% that my friends were not cheating, but the presumption that someone playing on their phone while at work for 10 hours is going to be able to provide video proof that they were not botting is pretty silly.
As for the question of bot detection in general, I think most would agree that the quality of coding we’ve come to expect is not up to the task of identifying bots, especially when faced with a new troop that allows significantly simpler farming than anything we’ve seen in the past 2+ years. No gem matching required, no leprechaun or even doomsayer explosion needed; simply cast 1 spell and collect rewards… ad-nauseum for hours… I do not have very high confidence that the developers of this game can reliably tell who is botting and who is not.
I know for a fact that they don’t possibly ban all those who cheat. It actually can take them a while and multiple reports before they find enough proof of someone cheating. It’s not something they do flippantly or have AI purely dictate. Plus the devs have absolutely nothing to gain by banning accounts.
However… I can’t go 5 minutes on the internet without reading bull shit. So as much as it’s nice to think your online friends wouldn’t lie to you about cheating. Odds are much more in favor that they are lying cheaters than the devs are banning innocent players.
Not saying that’s 100% the case here. Just saying that’s the historical odds. And until the data clearly demonstrates otherwise. The devs may frank up a lot… But again, there’s been zero proven cases of innocent players being banned on PC/mobile.
Yet the appeal system does exist just in case. So if the devs did make a mistake. Your friends will have the ability to make their case 1-3 months from now. And if they aren’t willing to wait then yeah… It’s assumed they are guilty.
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Ok so if they were cheating why exactly would they be mad? And if they weren’t then why would they get banned?
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I believe games are generally VERY lenient in banning cheats to avoid false positives.
If I were a GoW dev, I would ban something like 11 second games with no variation 300 times in a row submitted to server within <20 milliseconds each side of exactly 11 seconds apart each time.
But I am only speculating - your friends may actually have a case, although it is very curious they are the only ones affected, that have been reported in the forums.
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Yes… this is the actual point of the thread that we are posting in! (Not demanding that someone prove that they were not cheating.) I was curious whether other people had encountered otherwise-trustworthy players in their guild families being banned since ironhawk was introduced. Nothing more or less than that.
It is hard to say with confidence that someone isn’t cheating. Botting in this game, especially with that ironhawk team, is easy.
If I knew someone was banned, I would assume cheating first.
I would recommend the person banned come to forums and stick their neck out, rather than have a guildee do it for them. Plus if they tag the devs, and assuming they submitted a support ticket already, they may get help faster (speculating here, not actually sure).
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Banned from the game appeals have the lowest priority in regards to submitted tickets. I believe I’m correctly paraphrasing the devs correctly on that but of course I’m not speaking for them on this, or ever.
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The devs personally review accounts before they are banned. No one gets auto banned. If your friends were banned, I am 99.99% certain they were cheating one way or another. And as asked above, why aren’t they here advocating for themselves instead of you doing it for them?
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As stated above, I am not here to advocate for anyone. I am simply curious to see how many people have been banned after using ironhawk teams. Perhaps it is a small number… hopefully so!
But none of them stands up for themselves in the boards, moaning that the decision was wrong out of pure frustration. That their appeal tickets might takes weeks doesnt make it easier either (if they are not guilty). So maybe the players realized what they have done and moved on.
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I can 100% verify that I was not banned.
I know people were concerned.
I’m still here.
Would a bot have used an emoji like that? No.
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I killed 275 gnomes on Gnome Weekend using 3x Ironhawk and Dust Devil in Wild Plains. That’s a lot of gnomes. I didn’t get banned, because, well, I was actually playing. I have never used a bot and I agree with awryan: I don’t think people get banned unless there are actual reasons for them to get banned. At least I’ve never heard of it.
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We are excedingly careful with bans. As mention ed in this thread, players can appeal bans, but they are not our highest priority in the support ticket queue, so responses can take some time. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
I won’t say we are never wrong, but it is quite rare in instances of cheating.
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I really wish I had gone after more Ironhawks 
I’m used to only grabbing one of the new mythics. Didn’t realize this one would be so useful.
At least I can still speed through with a slightly modified team.
I did not get banned for using 3 Ironhawks and dust devil too.