Wrongly banned for hacking/exploiting. SOE, you need a policy rethink.

Though I've opened a ticket and will cross my fingers, I have a nagging feeling they may have an all bans are final policy.

I realize also people will be waiting to jump on this like the million other hackers who are dumb enough to come to forums after getting caught.

The difference is, I've never used any 3rd party software. I've never hacked, cheated, or exploited. My banned character (Vyxia on Miller), was presumably banned following an incident at an amp station, because it's the only thing I can think of.

I'd gotten over an enemy zerg as light support in one of the big struts that stick out from the roof. I was using a Pandora with slugs, and double-tapping headshots with an x4 sight. I probably got about 15 kills before running out of ammo.

Presumably the NC I was slaughtering were all part of an outfit, and because they couldn't see me (looking upwards evidently didn't occur), and were getting killed with a shotgun (evidently they didn't know either that a shotgun with slugs is effectively a sniper rifle in PS2), they decided I was hacking. And I'd presume what this outfit do is get all their members to dial in /reports once one of them decided they've been killed by a hacker.

I realize SOE needs to deal with cheaters aggressively and in fact applaud their stance on it. But as I'm 100% sure I've been using no software that could even trigger a false positive (clean x64 install for PS2 to try and stop the crashing), and as my stats show, I'm not remotely suspicious (a GM following me for 5 minutes would have seen my aim is pretty awful in any twitch duels - and even in that session with the amp station my overall K/D was about 3/1), I can only conclude the policy is to ban after a set # of reports is received.

This is incredibly dangerous as it allows large outfits to get people banned arbitrarily and without evidence just by invoking a mass report. This means anyone who dares outsmart/outplay them will get banned. Whilst I hope this ban will be revoked I'm not holding my breath, but regardless this policy needs looking at, a large number of reports alone, particularly all from the same outfit, is not a legitimate basis to deem someone a hacker.

I can't comment for CS, as I don't genuinely know why you were banned, however I can say that if it was a mistake SOE will do their best to make it right.

I know that doesn't solve your frustration, but there are many many methods being used to detect hackers and it doesn't mean that there can't be an occasional false positive or human error.

Just give them a little time, our queues are big due to the holiday and rotating resources, but someone will address it when they can.

Uhm that sucks. I really hope your ban will be revoked. Not going to comment on the fact that it were NC to QQ ^^

If the reports are all from people in the same outfit that should be reason for a little extra investigation before using the random ban hammer, eh?

You do realize that you don't get banned based off reports.

Reports are based off a flag system, where more reports will give off a higher priority flag on your character, where Devs will investigate into the issue.

So no, it's not "large outfits= ban." However, it could be a mistake on their behalf (maybe.) Only time will tell.

Yes... I'm encouraged by the fact the people responding seem to think SOE might check for human error.

I can't see what could have happened if devs 'investigated'. If they'd observed by they'd have seen me getting knifed, regularly losing 1v1 twitch duels, missing shots, and flying into trees like the noob I am.

If they'd searched for software, like I said, this is a clean x64 install with nothing but Steam and Skype, so I find it impossible to believe anything could have triggered something in detection software. I mean, unless Steam overlay counts, but then they'd be getting so many false positives it would be crazy.

So all I'm left to guess at is this outfit reported me en masse. Because the only other ways I could see them banning - i.e. detected 3rd party software or a GM observing me - couldn't have yielded a positive.

There wasn't even a spell in my stats with a huge killstreak - maybe my highest was 60/0 or something in a Scythe or Magrider over a few hours. I would be more than happy for a red name to post in this thread with any details because, whilst I can see the need to keep the anti-cheat policy a little under wraps so the hackers don't know what to look for, if outfits know they effectively have the power to ban people, at least they might have the courtesy to send a /tell and ask what happened before asking 100+ members to /report without firm evidence.

I wouldn't be overly paranoid about an outfit mass reporting causing this it's more likely one of our other anti-cheat measures. I only say this because I know our company process fairly well and it was something more than that to cause a ban. We don't like banning people unless there is a high degree of certainty of foul play or abuse of the game or other players, or griefing/harassment.

Just let CS get back to you and find out the reason and go from there.

Many thanks - I know this isn't your department, but another issue is that I've had to open a 2nd station account to open the ticket - the link in the ban email takes me to a login page which doesn't work (presumably because the account has been banned). So hoping this at least lets me open a line of communication with CS.

PM me that URL/link along with your station name for the banned account. I can't address your ban issue, but I can address the inability to look at the link issue

Well Im curious!

You seem confident that your gameplay could not have warranted a ban, and Veratu seems confident that a mass /report would not have warranted a ban, so what else is left? A GM could have simply made an error in entering commands, that's gonna happen, but barring that, did you do a bunch of TK'ing? Did you hop nations and spy? Did you harass or bully anyone?

I got banned for no reason, too. The 3-day suspension is over soon and SoE still hasn't replied to my appeal. Now I'll have to ask them to renew my boost which I bought only hours before I was suspended.

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The email says that your account is terminated and you are banned, but if you call CS and ask they say it is a 3-day suspension.

I called CS and they were the ones who said I needed to appeal using a different SoE account. They said their department wasn't responsible for bans, which is probably for the best or I would have started yelling.

Another person got banned in my outfit for no reason, his appeal was responded to and his ban lifted.
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Why would they ban an honest long time customer? I bought and played EQ,SWG,EQ2, PotBS, and now Planetside 2, and their response is to accuse me of hacking/exploiting. I've never felt so mistreated as a customer.

Thanks, that's encouraging to hear a ban was lifted. I didn't get any info on whether this was just a suspension so assume it's permanent unless revoked.

And no, I didn't TK (well, never deliberately, I got weapons locked once or twice, but that was carelessness in a long bio lab fight with people running into my line of fire). If getting weapons locked means an automatic ban, well, it should say that somewhere, but having gotten weapons lock a fair few times in PS1 (thumper + plasma ftw), I doubt it's that

Didn't hop nations and spy, I play solo just to kill people, overall strategy means little to me since it seems to involve spending a lot of time sat in a tank surrounded by 50 friendlies spamming spawn room doors.

Which also means I've never sent a tell and used /yell about twice since I started. Don't use voice or anything. So I doubt it's anything to do with the (anti-)social aspects of my gameplay.

I'm really at a loss as to why it happened. Had no weird lag spikes, nothing happened that I felt was an exploit (i.e. I never seemed invulnerable - in fact once I just randomly dropped dead for no reason... Clean install, and, even before reformatting, I've never had any hacks/3rd party tools on this machine since I built it, hell I've never even felt the urge to visit a hack site. I had some good spells with K/D but nothing superhuman or even to compete with some of the 100+ streaks I managed in PS1 - which I played for 3 years on the same account without ever being banned in, and about 5 years of hardcore EQ2 without incident. Obviously this seems to cover the EQ2 account and whilst I'm never likely to go back to that game, it does mean my EQ1 and EQ2 characters are presumably also lost, both of which have a bit of nostalgia behind them.

And, finally, it seems I can just create another account and keep playing, so asides from the EQ characters all that's really lost in PS2 is 4 days of leveling and my station cash. But, ofc, I'm not going to open my wallet a second time to SOE to rebuy stuff after being banned for no reason as for all I know it will just happen again if I pull off a sneaky move or rack up a killstreak. I will say it seems CS is good so I'll just keep hoping. Maybe it was just a typo but is it really as simple as some human having to type /ban <playername> loads of times?

Well, still not a word from CS - hope they get back today or Christmas is ruined!

Seems my new account is fine, which seems to support the idea this wasn't due to any false positives on the automated detection front. And if mass reports alone don't do it, it can only be human error..?

Wouldn't count on it, Vyxia. Christmas means minimum staff.

If you were able to make a new account and play with another character on the same machine without reformatting i doubt it was for hacking...........that alone would indicate no form of hardware, IP or MAC ban whatsoever. I would say if was probably for stat padding or grifing or some other violation, but i doubt they would ban a hacker and not initiate any kind of measures to stop him from returning to the game.



but i will say this, after reading your thread in the steam forums your numbers just don't add up.......your clearly underplaying your K/D ratio and skillset here because you claim it's 4.5 in your steam thread and you were banned for being a more skilled player.......just saying......


http://steamcommunity.com/app/218230/discussions/0/846940248094825010/

You missed it. I didn't.

Veratu is stating in no uncertain terms, that mass reporting can trigger a ban.

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Stopping cheating can be done, it really is a simple task. SoE is not, to date, willing to devote the required resources though. I have to qualify that statement now sadly...

WALLHACKING: Seeing through walls, give cheater exceptional awareness of where targets are going to and coming from and hiding.
How is this possible? The server is not calculating what the cheater can and can't see, and is sending the cheater your coordinates, therefore the cheater needs only use a simple tool to draw you on their screen. More advanced cheat tools can process audio to extrapolate positional data (which can easily be blurred or scrambled by the server).
AIMBOTTING: Automatically pointing the cheaters weapon at the target, often the skull.
How is this possible? Same as above, but the tool manipulates the mouse input stream.
SPEEDHACKING: Allowing a cheater to move more quickly than the game would normally allow.
How is this possible? The server is not verifying the cheaters motion, and allowing them to do what the honest player cannot do.

The end all cure for these most common cheats is implied above, the server is in essence supporting cheating. Why? Partly due to a short term profit motive, the cost of programming the anti-cheat protection, and the extra hardware required to make the calculations in real-time. Partly due to certain elements of the community believing when they are told that cheating is not permitted, and still spending money on the game.z

The truth as I have shown above, is that cheating is allowed. As I have stated many times in this forum, only the most idiotic of cheaters gets caught. They affect community morale and by extension publishers bottom line.

Cheating has become an ideal to many people, in games and in real life. Secrecy is paramount. Also important is demonizing, marginalizing, bullying, and even killing, those that expose the secrets. These 'people' look at things like mammalian empathy as a weakness, and aspire to model themselves after reptiles, insects, and bacteria. For them, exploiting others to make gains is central to their existence. They create nothing, they only destroy.

Stopping cheating can be done, of that there can be no doubt, but can it be done for profit? Are there enough honest people left in the world? Are cheaters now the majority?

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This is why I like to fly the aircraft. Cheaters seem to mostly get themselves off tearing apart both honest and dishonest players as fast as possible. Air battle tends to bore most of them I suspect. I see them all cluster******* each other from high above, and they look like the ants that they are. Call it a meta-game.

EDIT: Merry Christmas

I think you've highly over estimated the amount of hackers in online video games.........but that being said your plan to "fix" it has one major flaw...........client side hit detection......as long as this game uses it ANY anti cheat measures will only be damage control and never preemptive.

Actually, you don't know that, your talking out of your butt on this. SOE has stated MANY times that it will not release it's methods on banning or detecting. For all we know, it could be setup to auto ban after X amount of reports, or it could be passed through 20 hands and a CSR wide vote while eating candy canes and chanting "Higby"...

Not as simple as that. I've programed FPS project's before, even smaller 8 v 8 with server side hit detection on powerful server's makes a game unplayable. keep in mind if the server lags in anyway, EVERYONE lags, and the more people you add to the game, you reaise the amount of raw processing power needed explantionally. its really cost prohibited... I think our calculations where $73/person in server upgrades for server side hit detection, and server side movement, and still the game would of been unplayable... shame it got lost in the dev cycle.

It is 4.5, but I don't think that's an exceptional K/D at all. You can view the player stats at PS2 Universe (link in the Steam thread).

I mean think about it, 4.5 - you spawn in a MAX, move forward, kill a guy, then autorun back to safety and get repaired. Rinse and repeat 4 and a half times then fail and die. Or, more accurately, rinse and repeat 9 times then die twice in the space of 20 seconds spawning at a camped Sunderer. In a rock-paper-scissors game a high K/D is assured as long as you're holding a rock when the other guy is running with scissors But it's also completely true I fly into trees and get knifed on a regular basis

Effectively my playstyle relies mostly on the fact I know I have a 50% chance at best in a straight shootout, so I avoid straight shootouts. I'd say tactically & strategically I'm pretty skilled, i.e. rather than following the zerg I know where to be and with what weapon at the right time, but when it comes to twitch fights I'm mediocre.

In the initial Steam thread I'd assumed it was after the amp station incident when I assumed I'd been banned purely for outsmarting an outfit which had then reported me, since the ban happened about an hour later. Since I know I wasn't running any 3rd party software, or exploiting, or doing anything not legit, this was the only conclusion I could reach. As Veratu has since confirmed reports alone can't trigger a ban, I'm left with the only possibility being human error on the part of a GM.

I was ranting a bit in the Steam forums I admit, since it was right after the ban. Having seen such a great response from tech support at least (but nothing from CS), I'd definitely retract and apologise for the 'disgusted by SOE' bit, and fully intend to update the Steam thread with an apology if/when this is resolved, regardless of outcome

However, I'm not going to edit any posts on this or the Steam forums because like I said, I've got nothing to hide.