Is it time for Rockstar to change their banning policy?

[Gaffa]

Rockstar Games should accept that their ban system - like everyone's - isn't perfect and as a result some false positives will crop up now and then. This time round, it's a huge scale so there's obviously something really quite wrong. The company may be able to accept some false positives and sweep them under the carpet, but even if that number is tiny, it doesn't bode well for how the company deals with things... we've seen with EA's BF2 what public outrage can do, but if that's the route RSG want to take then so be it.

 

As a result of imperfect and automated systems, they should eradicate the support topics and Zendesk scripts which say ban appeals are impossible, and also remove where it says that decisions are final, because they're just not.

 

There really does need to be a proper appeal process though, and to excuse it with reasons of financial viability or time consumption just isn't acceptable. It'd be slightly more acceptable if the first disciplinary wasn't "your character and assets are going to be completely wiped" but only slightly. And when Mr. Joe Bloggs 'every day cheater' tries his luck with the "I din do nuffin" complaint, it won't hold up because there'll be immediately identifiable flags which show he's talking rubbish, and that in his case the ban was justified.

 

All of this doesn't even take into the account that there have been times when malicious functions in cheat menus can cause a player to lose legitimate in-game earnings, rank and other progress, with support saying "sorry, we can't validate <your story> being legit".

 

Total nonsense. Total nonsense for an AAA game with a multi-billion dollar company behind it.

 

Oh whilst they're at it, perhaps they could give me the reason my Xbox 360 and PC accounts were banned on the same day, permanently, at the back end of 2016 when I was tending daily to my cancer-ridden father, when even the console version was stock, took part in no DNS stuff or cheating but got a full wipe and perma on the first offence. /rant

Edited March 26, 2018 by Gaffa™

[Jimbatron]

^ a like for the logic. Sorry to hear about the BS you had to go through in the footnote.

[Kushology]

They need to change it. First hit is a total k.o..

 

I haven't been a victim or anything but the horror stories you hear, especially against legit players, it's atrocious.

 

I know what it feels like to lose everything having spent years and possibly thousands into a game. That's kind of a long story but it's ridiculous..especially when you aren't allowed to appeal it/tickets being auto-closed under certain keywords and etc.

[Classique]

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

[ALifeOfMisery]

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

F*ck me lol. That place never changes.

[CarimboHanky]

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

aah yes... the op of that thread is the R* support version of the follow gtaf user that has tom cruise on his avatar and hates cheaters with passion... i totally forgot his name.

[Jimbatron]

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

 

Judging by how many downvotes it has got already, I'd say the post you linked has been about as welcome as a fart in a lift.

[Zader]

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

I genuinely cannot believe people think that "This is what you get for playing on PC" is a reasonable response to someone paying $60 and being banned at random without ever interacting with cheating players. That might be the absolute dumbest thing I've ever read on this site, and I've been in a lot of trainwreck threads in my time.

 

To believe that anybody is permanently safe on current gen consoles is an utter failure of logic. They can and will be broken, and we're all in for a sh*tshow when that happens. It is not, and has never been a matter of "if" they get hacked, but "when". Those making the effort to do so are determined, and while it may take time for it to happen, it absolutely is coming. It is an inevitability that neither Sony or Microsoft can fully prevent.

 

I play on PS4, I wasn't able to switch to PC because I couldn't leave my friends behind. Asking people to go ahead and start from scratch with a $400 machine, doing the same thing, abandoning everybody that can't come with them and paying for an online subscription, is completely backwards. Rockstar's incompetence is not the fault of the innocent player, and they shouldn't be forced to shell out and start over because a company making more a year than some developing countries can't be arsed to look into their own anticheat a bit.

 

Rockstar needs to change it, at least remove the instant character wipe. At the very least, it'd allow those who've been unfairly banned to return to what they were doing once their temp is up. They need to address things somehow if they intend on continuing to release products on PC.

Of course people are going to cheat, that's the nature of any game, but that's no excuse for support failure at this level.

 

 

Edit: I gotta apologize for flying off the handle like I did, but that sh*t is the dumbest thing I've ever read.

Edited March 27, 2018 by Zader

[Kushology]

 

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

aah yes... the op of that thread is the R* support version of the follow gtaf user that has tom cruise on his avatar and hates cheaters with passion... i totally forgot his name.

Fingerblaster4ever or something? I've been in lobbies with that guy.

[Lonely-Martin]

 

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

aah yes... the op of that thread is the R* support version of the follow gtaf user that has tom cruise on his avatar and hates cheaters with passion... i totally forgot his name.

I see Blasterman4ever is up to old tricks.

[Black-Dragon96]

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

Ah yes good old rockstar support forums. The biggest sh*thole in the world.

Going offtopic here:

I remember that one guy called huffie from these very forum. He claimed that everyone with a hidden profile aka. not publicly viewable profile is a cheater and should be banned. I actually met this guy in game a while back doing a stuntrace. He was a ramming, curbboosting a$$hole who claimed that half the lobby was cheating because he came in last.

[fatdog]

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

Funny thing, such people never get banned, because trully hate cheaters and refuse to participate ANY kind of cheating. They might overreacting, but calling them trolls is as stupid as claiming that everyone is guilty.

Back to the subject, rockstar defitelly need more real humans for anticheat department, not just for appeals, but also to review reports of suspicious activities and accounts.

[Hécate-II]

 

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

 

Funny thing, such people never get banned, because trully hate cheaters and refuse to participate ANY kind of cheating. They might overreacting, but calling them trolls is as stupid as claiming that everyone is guilty.

Back to the subject, rockstar defitelly need more real humans for anticheat department, not just for appeals, but also to review reports of suspicious activities and accounts.

They're trolls forever, they ask you to open your profile and when you do and publish in detail your businesses earning(IE/Crates and stuff) they shut up and go camp another thread because they realize they accused of cheating someone who grinded much more than them.

[kenmy13999]

 

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

Funny thing, such people never get banned, because trully hate cheaters and refuse to participate ANY kind of cheating. They might overreacting, but calling them trolls is as stupid as claiming that everyone is guilty.

Back to the subject, rockstar defitelly need more real humans for anticheat department, not just for appeals, but also to review reports of suspicious activities and accounts.

We've had people here on the forum that truly hate cheaters and refuse to take part in any kind of cheating that still was banned.

Are you one of them since you "defend" them? That kind of people with that kind of behavior is what pretty much 99% of the people on Internet would call trolls..

[DeMeNs]

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

Risk of using a forum. You can find ppl like this XD

[Yellow Dog with Cone]

Yes, not even that, this bullsh*t policy of "all bans are unappealable and you will lose all your progress forever" shouldn't even be a thing in the first place. It's anti-consumer at its finest. Even more when PC is infamous for the rampant cheating, hacking and modding.

 

May you fellow PC players get your characters unbanned, keep raising your voice!

[SHOKKERZ91]

Reminder that these kinds of people exist.

Jesus... are these guys able to breath by themselfs?

[fatdog]

Are you one of them since you "defend" them? That kind of people with that kind of behavior is what pretty much 99% of the people on Internet would call trolls..

 

I usually share their scepticism about "unjustified" nature of the bans, not in this case unfortunately. We just sick of modders, that's all. At least we haven't end up banned and don't even afraid to join online, unlike people who treat modders more tolerably.

Edited March 27, 2018 by fatdog

[Wafer_Waffles]

 

Are you one of them since you "defend" them? That kind of people with that kind of behavior is what pretty much 99% of the people on Internet would call trolls..

 

I usually share their scepticism about "unjustified" nature of the bans, not in this case unfortunately. We just sick of modders, that's all. At least we haven't end up banned and don't even afraid to join online, unlike people who treat modders more tolerably.

 

I'm sorry but what does "unlike people who treat modders more tolerably" mean ? As far as I know, the way people treat these modder is to report them and change session so that they wouldn't risk their game files being damaged. So how can anyone "treats" these modders less tolerably? (Please don't answer that you categorize every single person who reported about false banned as a cheaters then try to "spot the mistake" in every single words of their post)

Edited March 27, 2018 by Wafer_Waffles

[UncleScrooge]

Three little words could force their hand on this matter: Class Action Lawsuit. Just saying...

[kenmy13999]

Nvm, wrong thread

Edited March 27, 2018 by kenmy13999

[scalliano]

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

Tell that to the people still playing on last gen.

 

Besides, the benefits vastly outweigh the risks:

[fatdog]

I'm sorry but what does "unlike people who treat modders more tolerably" mean ?

 

Let's say some friendly modder offers you a ride in a modded vehicle and you like "oh such a nice guy, I gonna spend some time with him".Actually just above my post is a good example of modder tolerance.

Edited March 27, 2018 by fatdog

[Wafer_Waffles]

 

I'm sorry but what does "unlike people who treat modders more tolerably" mean ?

 

Let's say some friendly modder offers you a ride in a modded vehicle and you like "oh such a nice guy, I gonna spend some time with him".Actually just above my post is a good example of modder tolerance.

 

Well the things is most modders are just asshole and most people would avoid them. But the guy in the socialclub forum with "the nitpick everything with no reason" part just easily make him a troll.

[ALifeOfMisery]

But the guy in the socialclub forum with "the nitpick everything with no reason" part just easily make him a troll.

I've got a particular dislike for those "profile not visible" types. Yes my stats are broken, have been for a long time, no I don't cheat, it proves nothing. C*nts.

Edited March 28, 2018 by ALifeOfMisery

[Jimbatron]

 

 

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.

Missed this first time round. I agree it's a double edged sword, but there's always a trade off.

 

From what we saw last year following a ban wave one of the most cancerous menus found a work around in days anyway and the worst script kiddies all bought another cheap key off the black market.

 

The only thing that really gave us respite from it all for a while was when they went after the creators of the menus with C&D orders. That for me signalled the longest period of cheater free GTA O. But even that was temporary - other menus have come in.

 

Bottom line is though if any justice system is convicting more innocents than criminals, then it has to be time for a rethink.

 

Better yet with the auto-kick proposal, if R* are smart and monitor the situation the might be able to identify when mod menu developers are using the trial and error procedure you described to try to circumvent their anti-cheat measures. Script kiddies won't debug it, so it's a potential way to flag suspicious activity, monitor the accounts and find the ones the Devs use, their IP address etc. Which if you ban them, you don't get the chance to observe. But currently I don't believe R* are devoting enough resource into that investigative work.

 

Three little words could force their hand on this matter: Class Action Lawsuit. Just saying...

Having read their EULA and legal T&C I think there's a case. But it's whether anyone would have the money and inclination to go down that route. I'm optimistic anyway this ban wave will be reversed.

Edited March 28, 2018 by Jimbatron

[Xiled]

 

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

Tell that to the people still playing on last gen.

 

Besides, the benefits vastly outweigh the risks:

 

The benefits of getting the ban screen in 4k I guess.

[PetrolCB]

 

No.

Risks of playing on PC.

Get a console and you don't get banned.

Tell that to the people still playing on last gen.

 

Besides, the benefits vastly outweigh the risks:

[Xiled]

Think the only way to fix the ban problem is to fix it by shutting down the game causing the ban.That will cause the bans to stop

Edited March 28, 2018 by Xiled

[thepiebaker]

Three little words could force their hand on this matter: Class Action Lawsuit. Just saying...

This i see is very doable. Depending on the country(ies) a cal is enacted in it would also be public causing them to have to be transparent on why each person in the suit was banned and admit the dun goofed and consequences against them will never be the same.

 

When im done typing this ill do some looking into the FCC i dont know about you folks outside the US but the FCC may see this is under their jurisdiction as they police companies in the form of false advertising.