NOBODY got banned for using ARCDPS! - dev post on Reddit

They went to ban a player for some pretty heaving cheating in PvP (among other bad stuff), and upon further inspection found over 5 dozen accounts linked to that player and took action on all of them.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/dka7hc/megathread_october_2019_ban_wave/f4lgjva/

Good morning and happy Monday, everyone.As you can possibly guess, there's not a ton I can say, as I am sure there will be users in the mix who would highly prefer to not have their actions put forward to the public and who have kept mum since their accounts were closed.However, I can give a few points.Firstly, there was no ban for ArcDPS. Not sure how that rumour started, but it seems to come up every time a padlock is placed and so far each time it was brought up, that was not the core issue. That folks spoke up who never used it could have been a tip-off, too.And with that addressed, I can only go into general things here.Last week, a user was actioned for very, very blatant cheating in PvP (which is why the meme thread is kind of funny to me right now...). The user in question had a bunch of other violations piled in as we investigation the situation and we actioned his accounts and the accounts used to cheat with.In doing so, we also found that he had access to about five dozen other game accounts. As these were accounts that were otherwise undamaged (no gold stolen, no characters deleted, no economic change to them after access) we found them to not be hacked, but shared with permission. All accounts this user accessed were also shut down under the same ban reason, as the cheater used them at some point.I would like to take this chance to please, please urge you all, yet again, to not share access to your game accounts. Ever. Because you do not know your online buddy as well as you think you might. They may be up to no good, they may use your account to do very shady stuff... or their promise to help bump you up in PvP might come at the price of a few months of dishonour.Aside from the user who used cheating software, all users who know they themselves did not still need to open a ticket to the customer support team, so we can help them secure their game accounts fully. We need to make sure passwords are changed and that each of these users understand that their accounts need to not be shared going forward to stay safe. Please note that if their accounts were used for cheating by that user, they may still be actioned for the cheating done on them.

Above from Lead Game Master Dornsinger.

Also, this:

Hey Dornsinger, thanks for the update!

Q: Out of personal interest, what's your/Anet's stance on the reverse engineered, hacked .dll that keeps the ArcDPS template functionality running?

[–]Dornsinger [score hidden] 6 minutes ago

As with all third party tools, it is : Use at your own risk. Always.

And, there you have it.

That moment when devs find the PvPer in the back of the room.

So one user with access to multiple accounts was rightfully banned for blatant cheating in PvP, tried to put the blame on Anet by using Arc Templates as an excuse and multiple people hopped on the "Anet is banning for Arc" bandwagon without any proof just to hate on Anet. Color me surprised.

@"Raknar.4735" said:So one user with access to multiple accounts was rightfully banned for blatant cheating in PvP, tried to put the blame on Anet by using Arc Templates as an excuse and multiple people hopped on the "Anet is banning for Arc" bandwagon without any proof just to hate on Anet. Color me surprised.

I'm sure everyone learned from the experience..............

@"Raknar.4735" said:So one user with access to multiple accounts was rightfully banned for blatant cheating in PvP, tried to put the blame on Anet by using Arc Templates as an excuse and multiple people hopped on the "Anet is banning for Arc" bandwagon without any proof just to hate on Anet. Color me surprised.

Exactly. Most likely that player was aware that a lot of players are angry about the monetization and limitations with the upcoming official build templates and decided to lie about getting banned for using the ARC DPS build templates to make everyone even angrier. In other words, they threw gasoline on the fire along with a couple hand grenades for good measure as a way to get revenge for being banned.

But, thinking about it...........over 5 dozen accounts linked to 1 player.......massive account sharing going on...........cheating like crazy in PvP............

Only logical conclusion: a bunch of lazy idiot PvP players payed real money for a service where the person you pay logs into your account and cheats at PvP to get your rank up for you. I have no sympathy for players like that.

On the bright side, at least ArenaNet finally did something about those PvP bots everybody complains about.

@Randulf.7614 said:

@"Raknar.4735" said:So one user with access to multiple accounts was rightfully banned for blatant cheating in PvP, tried to put the blame on Anet by using Arc Templates as an excuse and multiple people hopped on the "Anet is banning for Arc" bandwagon without any proof just to hate on Anet. Color me surprised.

Cant wait for all the " I got banned but 100% didnt hack " posts .

@"Raknar.4735" said:So one user with access to multiple accounts was rightfully banned for blatant cheating in PvP, tried to put the blame on Anet by using Arc Templates as an excuse and multiple people hopped on the "Anet is banning for Arc" bandwagon without any proof just to hate on Anet. Color me surprised.

I think it is about the owner of one of the few dozen accounts the PvPer in cause had access. If the owner did not know what that PvP-er done in the past, it is reasonable to understand his frustration. And the effort to find a reason (in this case ArcDPS) for the bann.

The sad part is the news of the hoax will likely overshadow any effort to dispel it. People really want a reason to blow this topic out of proportion and pretend it is the end of the world (hint - it's not).

@"Raknar.4735" said:So one user with access to multiple accounts was rightfully banned for blatant cheating in PvP, tried to put the blame on Anet by using Arc Templates as an excuse and multiple people hopped on the "Anet is banning for Arc" bandwagon without any proof just to hate on Anet. Color me surprised.

Based on what was said in that topic it sounds like what happened is one person figured out a way to cheat in PvP, which helped them easily get their rank up, then they started offering their "services" to other players to get their rank up (possibly for money or other compensation, possibly not). Those other players may not have any idea anything against the rules happened on their account, except account sharing of course. All they know is they gave their email and password to a really good PvP player who got their rank up, and nothing was stolen from them in the process. Then sometime later, when ArcDPS is a hot topic, they find their account is banned and assume it must be because they used Arc.

Of course it's possible there's also some false positives in there too. I think these things are normally done by IP addresses and those can change and aren't always unique. (My home IP address seems to change at least once a month, so I end up keeping several saved on my GW2 account.)

Can't devs communicate on their own forum ?

@"ParadoX.3124" said:Can't devs communicate on their own forum ?

Im sure they will. As of the time you posted above, they have been in the office for approximately 20 minutes (assuming a normal work week/hours) on a Monday morning. An "informal" announcement on reddit is something that can easily go out over the weekend - a response on their official forums probably requires a little more thought.

People often lie about the circumstances of their ban, no one ever broke a law in this world. Except for the few ones who brag about it, the others expect to be never caught red-handed, else they would not do it. Sometimes they get away with false accusations. It was very unlucky timing with this issue, I also hope we get an official clarification on the forums as well. I know ANet prefers Reddit over their own board, but it is really bad publicity in a moment where the game's reputation is not that good anyway. They do not even have to alter it, just one official statement from one of the common faces of the staff. And maybe ask deltaconnected to also publish a clarification? That should do the trick.

I never have been a huge fan of ArcDPS to begin with, I'd prefer a shutdown rather today than tomorrow. But winning like this has no meaning.

I'll spread the good news on our guilds discord.

Man the people crying on here about the templates and the so called bans must feel very...LOL

This is what happens when the community screams without gaining evidence. Now watch all of those folks fade in the background and act like they didn't attack this constantly. Can't wait

sips tea

So we can all move on, hopefully?

Last week, a user was actioned for very, very blatant cheating in PvP (which is why the meme thread is kind of funny to me right now...). The user in question had a bunch of other violations piled in as we investigation the situation and we actioned his accounts and the accounts used to cheat with. In doing so, we also found that he had access to about five dozen other game accounts.

The PvP leaderboard hasn't changed at all, I see the same people playing and same people on the board. So, what was this player doing? The leaderboard should have shifted if 60 accounts were cheating, no?

or their promise to help bump you up in PvP might come at the price of a few months of dishonour.

So blatant cheating, account sharing, etc...only gets you a few months of dishonour but a family sharing accounts gets them perma banned? Lmao, Anet, you sure know how to punish cheaters and treat your legitimate customers well.

@Roquen.5406 said:but a family sharing accounts gets them perma banned?

No. It's even in the (EU) rules that you can share accounts within the same house. There has never been a case where someone was banned simply for sharing, it's always been due to something else, like in this case where the person they shared with cheated.

@Dawdler.8521 said:That moment when devs find the PvPer in the back of the room.

Trust us, we'd rather be punching each other back here but it's really hard to do so when situations like this exist.

@"Raknar.4735" said:So one user with access to multiple accounts was rightfully banned for blatant cheating in PvP, tried to put the blame on Anet by using Arc Templates as an excuse and multiple people hopped on the "Anet is banning for Arc" bandwagon without any proof just to hate on Anet. Color me surprised.

Typical reddit altho you forgot ppl praising anet for "permabanning" ppl for using the addon.

This is the best news ever. Thank you ANET for banning cheating in PvP. More frequent ban waves of win trading and bot users can save PvP. Keep up the good work.

@"Seductive.5741" said:Cant wait for all the " I got banned but 100% didnt hack " posts .

No no no, I think you meant the "I was AFK for 5 mins while my game was still running, and my little brother hopped on my account and cheated! Please unban!!!11" claims. ;)

We got trolled. I can accept that and move on. On topic.

@Roquen.5406 said:

Last week, a user was actioned for very, very blatant cheating in PvP (which is why the meme thread is kind of funny to me right now...). The user in question had a bunch of other violations piled in as we investigation the situation and we actioned his accounts and the accounts used to cheat with. In doing so, we also found that he had access to about five dozen other game accounts.

or their promise to help bump you up in PvP might come at the price of a few months of dishonour.

You may want to re-read the post on reddit. The accounts banned which were not his was because he had access to them. Those players can submit a support ticket.

@Ayrilana.1396 said:

@Roquen.5406 said:

Last week, a user was actioned for very, very blatant cheating in PvP (which is why the meme thread is kind of funny to me right now...). The user in question had a bunch of other violations piled in as we investigation the situation and we actioned his accounts and the accounts used to cheat with. In doing so, we also found that he had access to about five dozen other game accounts.

or their promise to help bump you up in PvP might come at the price of a few months of dishonour.

Why would you allow cheaters to submit a support ticket? That's my point. They are harsher on people that don't cheat than those that do and it makes no sense. The reason cheating has become rampant is because there is no punishment for it. Few month suspension or dishonor...they just go play alt accounts or another mode. Even if they weren't directly cheating, they were cheating by allowing him to play their accounts for rewards they would otherwise not get. They should be perma-banned as well. Set a zero tolerance policy for cheaters and show they actually have integrity.