Improvement to Cheat Detection (and Consequent Bans)

I can see what you mean. The ‘automatic’ part could also mean more along the lines of, “with no room for leniency; we won’t have any choice but to ban you” – especially given that “flag your account for hacking” (automated) is mentioned separately – but I think it’s probably still worth clarifying, as it could also just ban you, like it says :slightly_smiling_face:.

Wait how about if the guy that was stealing the tv was really really really really poor and needed food and it was the only apportunity to eat or the guy. Or he was hi when he did it :rofl::rofl::rofl: I strongly condemn cheating but stories always have 2 sides unfortunately we live in unsecured period of time where no one trusts no one.

Look, if someone that is high can run scripts and hack the game, I’m super impressed. Doesn’t stop them from being banned though. :stuck_out_tongue:

At this point in time you can appeal your ban, but it is very unlikely that it will be removed unless you have evidence to support your claim. However, we have received a truly large amount of ban appeals, and may need to consider not doing them in future. it takes a significant amount of time to re-investigate cases, and our priority needs to be with players that need help in game, not revisiting cases where players are clearly cheating.

If we are certain you were cheating, and your case was an extreme one, there is no appeal process. You will not have a chance to reverse the ban.

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I respect what steps you guys are taking as I said I condemn cheating and that was bit of a banter :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:with bit of Peper and salt lol m on console fortunately we don’t have this problem :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s their game so they do get to be judge, jury, and Executioner.
They don’t do anything without evidence so it’s highly unlikely that they ever ban innocent people. Much more likely that people who cheat lie and say they’re innocent.
“Why would they lie” - you condescendingly think as you read this.
“Why the frank would ANYONE cheat in a video game that doesn’t allow mods of any sorts?” - I reply despite hating a question being answered with question.

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These kind of problems are on pc and from my experience it’s hard to do anything to stop it apart from seasonal bans. I play multiple games and I’ve seen this problem on multiple game forums but it’s always on pc platform. I must say that even pc has the mass more players ect but it got its fair shares of problem. Our only problem on console is if we streaming while doing clan war, guild wars ect in which we never do and always go offline. The only thing that can happen to pc is for steam to tighten their security. (FYI Console player here not much knowledge on steam)

Some years ago, when I went to work, I asked my sister to collect coins as soon as they appeared. Another guy used for this bot. How can I prove that I used a sister and she is not a bot?

Well, that was your mistake then.
You should have asked your sister to collect the coins a minute after they appeared.

Still, the best proof that your sister was collecting the coins would be a video footage of your sister.
Of course, you can apply filters over her face for privacy reasons.

I highly doubt that you got banned just because someone was collecting coins as soon as they appeared.

What bothers me the most that cheaters are actually detrimental to the game and its development.

All that spent time wasted on ban appeals could have been used on the next update, not to mention that those resources (money and time) could be better spent elsewhere than appealing some bans which are probably justified in the majority of cases.

However, I agree that some mistakes can be made from time to time.

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If your account was banned, the conclusion is simple: your sister didn’t like being employed to do your chores for you and cheated.

If you’re just trying to build the case for, “Oh, but there legitimate modes of play that LOOK like cheating,” to support, “…so we should not ban all these innocent people,” save it. The hypothetical scenario is an unfortunate one, but accounts are the actors in the game and accounts are banned, not people. It doesn’t matter if you are held at gunpoint and the attacker steals your phone, then uses an infinite gem exploit. That will get your account banned.

It’s harsh, I know, but it’s necessary so everyone with a sibling, real or imagined, doesn’t have a get out of jail free card. That’s just unfair.

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How can you prove that when you went to work some years ago, it was actually you working and not a bot? Simple answer, you don’t need to, your overall behavior patterns differed enough from those of a disguised robot replacement to not even warrant the question. Same applies to Gems of War, a bot doesn’t behave the same way as a human, and it’s very apparent to those who know what to look out for.

I’m just curious how someone is supposed to provide “proof” they were not cheating, beyond stating “I don’t cheat”.

I’ve yet to ever meet a cheat detection system that never made a mistake. Dealing with appeals from obvious cheaters is part of the cost of doing business in order to ensure legitimate players don’t lose access to the game.

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You are so cruel! I just wanted to know what evidence of innocence to stock in the future!
P.S. No, my account is not banned, thanks for the concern.

In many industries robots successfully replace people. Some of them even pass the Turing test. If my work is to shift the boxes from right to left, then in the end no one can distinguish, I did it, or the robot, if there was one. Subject to the absence of an observer.

That’s just the point, a reasonably attentive observer will be able to distinguish, by looking at things you’ll likely not even be aware of. A reasonably suspicious observer might even place one of the boxes a little to the side, to see if you suddenly start shifting empty air from right to left.

It’s funny. I play many different games on mobile and PC and this exact same discussion invariably happens in every game and it usually plays out the same way on the game forums as well.
DEV: Announcement. We just banned lots of players for cheating.
Player A: Yay!!! Good Riddance!!
Player B: What??? But what about the innocent players you just banned???!?!? I WANT MY ACCOUNT BACK!!!

What follows is usually a 50 page argument between the players in the Player A camp vs. the players in Player B’s camp with the occasional response from the devs stating that they didn’t ban any innocent players.

@Saltypatra is correct. Most banned players will appeal and it costs a lot of time and money to review them but most devs will review just because they want to be sure their bot detection methods are foolproof. It’s the whole, “we’d rather 100 guilty go free than 1 innocent be condemned” concept.

I have a solution to that dilemma. Not sure about the legalities. I’ll just throw it out there to the Devs and if they think it has merit then they can let their lawyers fine tune it.

Here it is: Keep the appeal process but charge a fee. Something affordable for most but enough that it would give someone pause from filing a false appeal. Maybe around $50. If the appeal determines that the banned player really was innocent, then the account is re-instated and the appeal fee is refunded to the customer. If it was a legit ban then the account stays banned and the devs keep the fee.

That would be a raging disaster. Every single person who paid the fee but didn’t get their account recovered would file a chargeback with their credit card company, alleging “fraud” or “service paid but not received” or similar. The chargebacks would carry penalties for the devs / publisher and make their finances look bad.

Additionally, if someone pays the fee then does get their account back, they immediately take the position that “this is PROOF that I didn’t cheat, because you wouldn’t have given the account back otherwise! And if I didn’t cheat then you were in the wrong the whole time! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!”

There is absolutely no win in any scenario. Nope nope nope.

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Tho they’d pay for a dev to look over their case again, not for getting the account restored.
Thus, they won’t be able to chargeback on fraud grounds. They paid for a recheck, they got the recheck🤷

And if they didn’t cheat, and get their account back, they get the fee reimbursed anyway, so no complains there either.

This player was banned (because the Switch was new and had bugs).

He appealed.
He got his account back.
First actual innocent person I’ve known it ever to happen to.
Moving on.

@Amadan

Well, thats why i said to get the lawyers involved. They’d know best how to phrase the wording of the fee or even if it’s possible. It’s really not a call that either of us could make.

But right now, you have a situation where the devs ban 10,000 accounts for botting. Let’s say 9995 of those really did bot and 5 were “very intense” gamers that played legit for hours on end. You now have roughly 9000 appeal requests coming from folks that say to themselves, “yeah I know i cheated but I’ll just plead innocent. Doesn’t hurt to try.”

Well, lets make it hurt to try if you know you’re guilty.

Just clarifying.


Involving lawyers to say “non-refundable in any circumstance” would probably be a good idea :stuck_out_tongue:, since it would be hard for us to know whether or not the appeal process was fair and legitimate given that they can’t discuss details – leaving room for those fraud allegations/chargebacks mentioned.

I wouldn’t be wholly against it, tbh, depending on the implementation, although trust in the Devs and the appeal process would be kinda necessary, I think, to justify the cost for an innocent player.

The fee is a bad idea.

It incentivizes developers to ban players. I’d be willing to bet a lot of people don’t spend $50 on the game, but after a while they might if forced to. If the players don’t appeal, oh well. If they do, the devs make money whether it was a mistake or not.

The system should make things bad for the devs if they false positive. Right now it does: players tend to leave the game after getting banned if innocent, and if certain players leave the game they tend to bring others with them. That’s both revenue and engagement metrics walking away.

Would the devs do it? Not sure. I don’t like to try and predict the ethics of a team whose job is to convince me 1,500 gems (not even enough for 1 full event shop) are worth $100.