Is it time for Rockstar to change their banning policy?

[Wafer_Waffles]

Hey everyone today I'm gonna ask you all something. What is your opinion about Rockstar banning policy?
Personally, I would like them to change the policy because of all the post everywhere talking about "Banned for no reason","Falsely Banned", and many more. And when does this start to happen? I remembered that when I started the game for the first time after installing the "Gunrunning" update there is this "welcome" or should I say "warning".
The "Welcome" screen-----> https://i.imgur.com/084tYow.jpg
So I'm pretty sure that the new banning system is in use in GR update. So this was the point where they start using this "new policy".

 

Update to GTA Online Suspension and Ban Policy

 

CREATED OCTOBER 12, 2016 UPDATED NOVEMBER 22, 2017

Question: What happens if I am suspended or banned from GTA Online?

Answer: GTA Online suspensions are triggered by a number of factors, including modding in GTA Online, exploiting or abusing game mechanics, manipulating protected game data and code, or interfering with other players’ gameplay experience.

Suspensions from GTA Online due to these reasons may be temporary suspensions or permanent bans depending on the severity of the infraction.

If you receive a temporary suspension from GTA Online, the next infraction will result in a permanent ban. If you are temporarily suspended from GTA Online, you will not be able to access GTA Online from the moment you are suspended. Your suspension expiration date is shown on the splash screen after being returned to Story Mode following an attempt to play GTA Online.

In addition, your GTA Online character(s) will be reset. All GTA Online progress, property and inventory will be reset.

All GTA Online suspension and banning decisions are final and may not be appealed.

I mean look at this new policy what are they intentions. One "violation" even if it is a real one or a faulty one then boom all your progress got wipe out and you can't play online for a month. And the best thing about it?

All GTA Online suspension and banning decisions are final and may not be appealed.

Yes they won't reason with you at all and they will only tell you that you violate their rule and post a link to this policy. I think that this maybe the dev's solution to make the works of the support easier as the support are actually outsourced company not from the Rockstar devs and basically support don't need to analyze the problem and just read the scripts. I won't have any problems with this policy at all if this so called "anti-cheat programs" of them work perfectly and reduced those player who using mods and ruin other's experience, but nope I still get trapped in a cage, I still get teleported, I still get insta-killed by some explosion. At first I wasn't convinced by those who said that they're innocent but then it happened to me on the 1st of March, a level 371 character with over 1000 hrs play time got wiped clean and I can't do anything about it or even acknowledge about why I was banned. I kinda get over it and moved to others game for sometimes but then this new banwave happened last friday and Rockstar still use the same policy. It even make me wonder that how did they get away this policy at all. I think this time their anti-cheat have gone too far and I hope that they would change their policy soon.

[POOL]

PC players go through alot....

[Furry_Monkey]

It would cost too much money to deal with every single appeal, and that's especially annoying for them when you consider that 90% of the appeals would be people that were correctly banned but think if you lie you get what you want. Those people need a life lesson.

 

If they spent the money on proper support, proper ban mechanisms to cut down the number of incorrect bans, then there'd be no money left in the pot to pay the designers for their classy adversary modes. I guarantee you there'll be an adversary mode at some point where the winner is the last person standing after a botched piece of software kills the players at random one-by-one. It'll be called "Ban Wave" and they will literally be sticking two fingers up at you when they release it.

[Quinn_flower]

They won't. R* isn't a company to admit their mistakes

[Jimbatron]

Yes. And that's speaking as someone who has never been banned.

 

The faulty ban waves of last week and 2017 have probably cost them money in extra support tickets, and reputational damage if the steam reviews are an accurate barometer.

 

What they should do:

 

1) if their cheat detection algorithms pick up a possible cheater they should auto-kick them from GTA O, but not ban them. A legitimate player who is wrongfully auto kicked can raise a ticket to have it investigated. That way R* can find out if they are picking up benign third party software - msi afterburner was suspected to be a possible past cause. With this solution, real cheaters are quickly removed from sessions, but where there is a false positive, the impact on a legitimate player is mildly irritating rather than devastating. A message could read "you have been kicked from GTA O due to suspicious activity on your account. If you have not attempted to break the EULA, please contact R* support so we can analyse any problems with your system."

2) bans should occur after repeated auto-kicks over a period of weeks - IE a cheater has repeatedly come back after being booted.

3) character wipes should only occur after a manual review where it is 100% positive there has been serious cheating. By all accounts, most cheaters just buy a cheap key off the black market and start again anyway if they are banned. So this action is far more likely to hurt innocent false positives than those it is targeted against.

 

Stage 1 sounds obvious to me - I can't understand why the don't do that. It should keep sessions cheater free, but it provides an early warning system if changes to their anti-cheat accidentally flags half the player base. Then at worst people lose an afternoons gaming whilst R* fix things. Not having genuine fans really worried they might lose years of character build.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Jimbatron

[Guest]

^^ they could make such algorithm based flags more transparent in general, maybe adding a kind of "player review" to the statistics pages; gives a) people time to check the matter with Support if they feel wrongfully flagged, and b) some of those flags might also become available for in-game player-info, making it easier for other players to identify possible troublemakers in mission lobbies etc.

[Lonely-Martin]

I believe folk should have the right to appeal for a review.

[Fozzie]

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

[Spectre143]

The whole automated system went downhill ever since the change of the 3 strikes + no reset policy, RIGHT AFTER the falsebanwave that affected players who were running MsiAfterburner or Discord.

 

The "all bans are final" policy coupled with a faulty anti cheat that flagged false positives on multiple occasions is just about the perfect recipe.

 

The cherry on the top goes to the outsourced support team who greets you with their lovely Zendesk bot who auto closes any ticket that has the word "ban" written on it.

 

Every, single, time, I witness another falsebanwave I go re-watch

.

 

Comparing their whole anti-cheat and "vaguely existant" ban appeal policy to a joke is an understatement.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Spectre143

[Jimbatron]

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

Don't cross the road ever, and you'll never be run over by a car.

 

You should also be aware the last gen consoles were hacked and cheating on them is reportedly rampant. It's only a matter of time before this happens with the current gen.

[dorcy]

yes it is, but they won't. because...

 

 

[Sanches]

They should have changed it years ago.

[update_lsc]

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

you're the kind of person who needs to be blown up nonstop by scriptkiddies for spewing such bullsh*t. don't worry, ps4's time will come eventually. it'll be as big of a mess as ps3.

 

 

of course they do. Jimbatron's idea is pretty good.

[Black-Dragon96]

 

 

Yes. And that's speaking as someone who has never been banned.

 

The faulty ban waves of last week and 2017 have probably cost them money in extra support tickets, and reputational damage if the steam reviews are an accurate barometer.

 

What they should do:

 

1) if their cheat detection algorithms pick up a possible cheater they should auto-kick them from GTA O, but not ban them. A legitimate player who is wrongfully auto kicked can raise a ticket to have it investigated. That way R* can find out if they are picking up benign third party software - msi afterburner was suspected to be a possible past cause. With this solution, real cheaters are quickly removed from sessions, but where there is a false positive, the impact on a legitimate player is mildly irritating rather than devastating. A message could read "you have been kicked from GTA O due to suspicious activity on your account. If you have not attempted to break the EULA, please contact R* support so we can analyse any problems with your system."

2) bans should occur after repeated auto-kicks over a period of weeks - IE a cheater has repeatedly come back after being booted.

3) character wipes should only occur after a manual review where it is 100% positive there has been serious cheating. By all accounts, most cheaters just buy a cheap key off the black market and start again anyway if they are banned. So this action is far more likely to hurt innocent false positives than those it is targeted against.

 

Stage 1 sounds obvious to me - I can't understand why the don't do that. It should keep sessions cheater free, but it provides an early warning system if changes to their anti-cheat accidentally flags half the player base. Then at worst people lose an afternoons gaming whilst R* fix things. Not having genuine fans really worried they might lose years of character build.

 

I agree with you for the most part, but:

The only time a character should be reset is when a player gets permanently banned.

Every ban should be initiated by a human support worker.

[Blank Mirror]

 

don't worry, ps4's time will come eventually. it'll be as big of a mess as ps3.

 

lol, mustard face delusions

Edited March 26, 2018 by Blank Mirror

[Rabid Vulpix]

 

 

don't worry, ps4's time will come eventually. it'll be as big of a mess as ps3.

 

lol, mustard face delusions

 

 

Yeah, when next gen comes out & R* abandons old gen, it's a cycle.

Current gen consoles (of their time) will never suffer modding & the consequential ban crap to the level that PC faces.

What bothers me as a console player, is I know when the next GTA comes out, the PC master race vocalists will start up again.

Amazing how so much superiority boasting comes from the same group that suffers the worst of issues in-game.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Foreverpast

[Fozzie]

 

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

you're the kind of person who needs to be blown up nonstop by scriptkiddies for spewing such bullsh*t. don't worry, ps4's time will come eventually. it'll be as big of a mess as ps3.

 

 

of course they do. Jimbatron's idea is pretty good.

I was the one doing that on PS3 along with having modded cars and outfits etc etc... PC is sh*t and if you play GTA Online on PC you get what you deserve.

Should've learnt your lesson from LG

[Big Molio]

Yeah, when next gen comes out & R* abandons old gen, it's a cycle.

Current gen consoles (of their time) will never suffer modding & the consequential ban crap to the level that PC faces.

What bothers me as a console player, is I know when the next GTA comes out, the PC master race vocalists will start up again.

Amazing how so much superiority boasting comes from the same group that suffers the worst of issues in-game.

 

 

I'm glad I don't play on PC. I upgraded to XBOX One X recently and did notice a slight improvement in performance, load speeds, draw distances and visuals. Whilst it may not reach the dizzy heights of the PC offering, I don't suffer much of the cheating crap as gets reported on here.

[ALifeOfMisery]

The banning policy should absolutely be changed.

 

I have no problem whatsoever with mod menu users being banned or character wiped.

 

If R* insists on punishing dupers and money glitchers (I have no problem with players duping) I think money wipes, maybe account monitoring/limiting (like with daily sell limits) is harsh enough and character wipes are undeserved.

 

R* should have to provide a reason for any punishments handed down. "Our anti cheat has detected use of a mod menu on your account", "A garage census detected 127 identical Elegy Retro Customs on character two of your account", "An account survey detected X millions of unaccountable GTA$ in your Maze Bank account" etc. At least inform players what they are accused of.

 

There should be an appeals process. This should be dealt with by actual human beings. No auto closing of tickets, no auto bot replies. After receiving the ban email or money wipe notification there should be a period of time in which a player can appeal against the punishment. If as above players are informed of why they have been punished they at least have a starting point for appeals.

 

If R* can't accurately and effectively implement their anti cheat, they shouldn't use one at all. Or at the very least not hand down this draconian blanket punishment of wiping accounts. R* aren't a start up indie dev, this game alone makes them hundreds of millions or dollars a year, it's about time they were held accountable for their errors instead of practically getting a free pass.

 

Edit: I completely agree with KWFs Sentiment (below), this issue is bigger that the whole PC master race/console peasants nonsense. Anyone who thinks this type of situation won't hit current gen consoles once they are broken (looks like PS4 might win that race to the bottom) really should reevaluate their thinking. Part of the reason R* is able to get away with their sh*tty practices is due to the toxicity and vitriol that is prevalent within the GTAO community.

Edited March 26, 2018 by ALifeOfMisery

[Lonely-Martin]

 

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

Don't cross the road ever, and you'll never be run over by a car.

 

You should also be aware the last gen consoles were hacked and cheating on them is reportedly rampant. It's only a matter of time before this happens with the current gen.

 

I agree, and that whole argument really does just vex me. Who f*cking cares. Really.

 

Downside to it all though, and I don't know/care how or where it all started. It stops people caring or wanting to help too. From both sides.

 

Currently, PC players (rightly mind), are in need of their fellow GTA fan to show support. Personally, I don't feel, had the shoe been on our foot, we'd have any chance of getting the PC players support, save a few here I find reasonable, yourself included. There's many that do show to simply not care about this platform bollocks, but so many attack us all the time as a player base too. I can see why some are so cold here - Such a shame!.

 

I support this purely as I see the longer term issues that can grow from this and simply ruin the game I love. We're setting the bar going forward, and this could be the 2nd time R* just duck the issue. (Well, more than the 2ndd time, IMO).

 

I don't like it one bit, not because of anything more than my own selfish desire to never see these issues. It's wrong that a player can invest so much time and possibly money into something that can be taken away like this. People would be furious if the staff at McDonald's came and took their big mac off of them and threw it in the bin, no refunds, get out!. No bloody different here. And unacceptable really. Who, how, when, or where don't matter. Platform doesn't come into this.

 

It's a GTA plague, look at old gen. Just the same. Worse now they just abandoned it. The console upgrade saved them so much effort here too, cut a huge corner there - And still sell cards on old gen too - So it's most definitely still supported. What a cop out they had there. Still a bit pissed my old account couldn't be fixed after the crap I got. (And the second these menu's make it to current gen, I uninstall instantly and let this new account be a memory of how it was, not what it will become, or was on PS3).

 

Way I see it, this will happen to current consoles one day, and wherever it starts, PC/Console, whatever. We all should be looking to work together to see this never becomes an issue more than an isolated and acknowledged mistake that they show to fully rectify and fix. The money these guys make, the bare minimum one should expect is a safe, dread free, gaming experience. (Again, to use McDonald's. If my big mac is crap, I get a fresh/refund and even an apology for their mistake. Doesn't hurt their business model/sales. Win/Win, IMHO)

 

Of course, anyone that actively looked to cheat, even if it was for $5000 in cash or something that trivial. Knowingly does so at their own risk too. They get caught up, and did. Tough. But again, many that show to cheat get a free pass still, while a clean player, or one that has their account manipulated by another looking to cause these issues, is the one to be punished here. Again, just not right. (More McDonald's, lol. If I manipulate my burger, it's all on me if I get a belly ache, lol).

 

Too many on here looking to label others as cheats, trolls, tryhards, whatever. So much this vs. that too. But we all play GTA, lol. Never understood why others care so much over what others use to play videogames. Funny really. Though, frustrating to be called names all the time (as a player base), but of course, it goes both ways too. I'm sure some PC players are as fed up with it too. Hence, so many distance themselves. (Be it personal from one person/argument. Or a more general vibe like I feel - I know there's many that will belittle me for owning a PS4, and I disagree wit that sentiment, nothing more).

 

It's all beside the point IMO though. This problem, now or further down the road, like before on old gen, is everyone's. This, along with many issues I've discussed this last 6 months or so (Since Gunrunning mainly), are all things I take on board when RDR2 comes. My hopes they show to learn take a huge hit with this latest DLC too. Genuinely, the $10k change in insurance, clearly showing that BS points are to be had defending against these weaponised, often passive abusing, toys!. (This issue again too, of course).

 

What a f*cking mess.

 

(What do I need to do, just sign in and comment to help this cause. Genuinely, it's gone off like wildfire and I'm lost. Links everywhere and this all confuses me).

[kenmy13999]

Well said KWF1981

[Mattoropael]

 

 

 

don't worry, ps4's time will come eventually. it'll be as big of a mess as ps3.

 

lol, mustard face delusions

 

 

Yeah, when next gen comes out & R* abandons old gen, it's a cycle.

Current gen consoles (of their time) will never suffer modding & the consequential ban crap to the level that PC faces.

What bothers me as a console player, is I know when the next GTA comes out, the PC master race vocalists will start up again.

Amazing how so much superiority boasting comes from the same group that suffers the worst of issues in-game.

 

 

The whole reason that GTA Online has a boat load of trouble on PC is that Rockstar is half-assing their support to the platform.

 

You can be way more lax when it comes to developing anti-cheat on PS4 and XB1 because you can piggyback on those yet-to-be-cracked closed systems' inherent security, but on PC developers really should know better.

 

And yes, anti-cheat on GTA Online PC is an afterthought. Back in 1.24 (Heists) there was nothing. All you needed was a modified Scripthook with its built-in MP block removed, and you could do anything you wanted. It's simply comical for a multiplayer game on PC.

 

When the developer oversight is this severe, using this game as basis for comparison between platforms on a whole is pointless.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Mattoropael

[Nihilist.]

Spot on, KWF1981, we need to stick together. Current gen consoles will be cracked one day, it wil happen. It may be soorer, it may be later, but either way we're in this together as a community, and there's no way to determine if there's a subgroup that most definitely will not be affected by R*'s incompetent, totalitarian policies.

 

I agree with the initial point of this thread - changes to banning must be made, and can't be both final and automated. It all affects the game very negatively, creating unnecessary atmosphere of constant tension and stress of getting banned for nothing, your hard work being thrown to trash. I often use my past experience in discussions regarding unfair punishments from R* - 600k legit $ was wiped out from my Maze Bank account couple of updates ago for literally no reason. I've never cheated, I've reported every single case of encountered cheater, and one day I've logged in just to see all this money gone. Rockstar didn't even reply to my (polite and precise) support ticket, they've just closed it. And you know what's the most ironic part? I'm lucky, because there were people who lost millions, and we constantly hear about those who were banned for nothing.

 

R* really needs to do something - address the issue and ensure it won't happen again, while, naturally, unbanning fair players after checking every case individually. If we ignore it, Rockstar won't do anything about it, and continue to operate the way they do now, which is simply unacceptable.

[CarimboHanky]

if anything they should add a appeal process and banned players or those flagged to be wiped should atleast receive some evidence of what triggered the system.

 

but on the other hand, providing that evidence would be the demise of the "security system" as it would let people know whats triggering the system and would help modders create menus that bypass this flags.

 

guess its complicated business being a pc player

[Jimbatron]

^ agreed that there's a genuine risk that if they give too much away cheat menu devs could use that info to develop countermeasures. But as I mentioned earlier I think legally you could actually challenge this if you had the real life money and could be bothered. Their legal section does not say they can suspend or terminate your online account at their sole discretion, only if you broke the EULA. Which implies some standard of proof is needed.

 

I think the main thing is a character reset should only come after a full and proper manual review, and only when there is clear proof of cheating via third party tools.

[flexcreator]

^^ they could make such algorithm based flags more transparent in general, maybe adding a kind of "player review" to the statistics pages; gives a) people time to check the matter with Support if they feel wrongfully flagged, and b) some of those flags might also become available for in-game player-info, making it easier for other players to identify possible troublemakers in mission lobbies etc.

 

Making such things transparent is an extremely terrible idea. If you make algorithms transparent, it would be so much more easy to avoid. Quite the opposite - they need to make such things LESS transparent, so it would be harder for modders to bypass them.

Developers are not fighting against mods, they are fighting against people that make these mods. And these people are not stupid.

 

That's the reason you have only a single open source antivirus (ClamAV) and no one is taking it seriously.

 

1) if their cheat detection algorithms pick up a possible cheater they should auto-kick them from GTA O, but not ban them.

 

This is a double edged sword. This will introduce said transparency and would allow modders to simply debug their menus in order to bypass the auto-kick feature. A few hours of trial and error and viola - the new version of the mod.

I don't like this idea.

 

Banwaves were effective, because they come by surprise. If you are banned, you can't just fix the mod - the account it gone and you have to buy another one.

[SUPERSAD]

I got banned for a month, but either did I cheat or something like that nor do I got hacked.

 

As an old official SA-MP server management admin, I adopt the policy of banning cheaters permanently. In my opinion nobody should cheat in online public games.

 

 

All GTA Online suspension and banning decisions are final and may not be appealed.

This sound really strange for me. This contains there is no doubt the anti cheat works and always will work 100% perfect.

How can someone know if their system will never be broken? What happend when ppl were wrongfully banned due to the wrongfully detection in the past?

 

 

In my opinion and from what I have learned:

Erros may sneak in.

You never can be 100% sure if its complex and you work with several other people on something especially when your software is

 

triggered by a number of factors

 

It might be frustrating and a lot of work, but Rockstar should take a look from to time to their ban-trigger-anti-cheat. Errors and mistakes may happen. Now it has happend.

The ban-trigger-anti-cheat does not work right. This can happen, no problem. I make many mistakes myself, but telling us the ban is final and may not be appealed is not very nice.

Edited March 26, 2018 by SUPERSAD

[Wafer_Waffles]

Thank you for all the discussion I just hope they would admit it this time and take to their consideration. I just don't know what's wrong with the "suspension for ... days without resetting the character" system that can knock some sense to someone who attempt to cheat.


Also to anyone who thought PC were unplayable I must tell you that before I transfered my PS4 account to PC (to play with my real life friends) I am scared of all the modders because the information everywhere that it is unplayable then after I played it for sometimes it was actually not very different from my last gen experiences (before they abandoned it) like it is just a bit annoying when I got trapped and I just need to change session. I only have one serious problem with them (they just remove all my gun) so they just annoyed me but not to that unplayable level like most people said. It is amazing that nowadays I fear Rockstar more than I fear those modders.

[Furry_Monkey]

I think it would be much better if they at least accepted that there have been unfair bans, and instead of banning people just move them into a cheater pool (similar to, but segregated from, bad sport). That way people don't actually lose anything and can still continue to play. They could put a closer watch on what happens in those sessions, what with them being a LOT smaller in scale than the rest of the player base, and could dish out lifetime bans for further offences, which would be a lot easier to prove.

 

If people in there did get to appeal and got moved out of the cheater pool then good for them. It's not perfect, no, but it's better than waking up one day and finding your character deleted after spending over 4000 hours building them up, and doing absolutely nothing wrong.

[Raj The Rager]

Ok, at first I though it was just a bunch cheaters and griefers just whining abou their ban, But now since I'm seeing a number of compliants about this issue, I now see Rockstar's banning policy is affecting people who aren't doing anything wrong. It's kind of crazy you could be playing one day and you get on the next and you see a notice that you're temp banned and your GTAO character's progress has been completely wiped.

Edited March 26, 2018 by Rim J Sphincter