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We don’t know — and can’t know — if someone using an unofficial client is actively cheating or not. If there’s a possibility they’re modding and they’re already violating ToS by using the wrong client, then Kabam has to act in the best interest of the game. I feel bad for someone who lives in a region where they are only able to access the game through unorthodox means. But it is what it is.

Just to amplify this a bit, a lot of people don't fully appreciate why Kabam very strictly prohibits things like the use of emulated environments or unofficial game clients. The reason why is because once you allow players to play on environments you do not control or do not have a complete understanding of, you can't trust anything that happens anymore. Even if you build anti-cheat capabilities into the client, you can't trust what they say if the game runs in an emulated environment where the player theoretically has the ability to control anything the game client sees or does. Ditto if the game client has been altered in any way.

When someone says they should only ban people when they actually cheat, that's like saying banks should allow people to wander around in the bank vaults and teller stations, sift through the cash, and only stop them if they actually try to leave with money in their pockets. That's asking for too much. They have to stop players from using tools that make it extremely difficult to catch cheating, even if those players aren't cheating. There's no way to be certain those players aren't cheating, and we can't just take their word for it.

I do in fact have sympathy for players who side load the game because circumstances make it impossible for them to download through authorized channels. However, it is also important to note that Kabam didn't just straight up ban everyone. According to their announcement, a bunch of people were banned permanently. Some were temporarily banned and/or given warnings. Players have come forward to state they were either perma banned or temp banned, so we know both kinds of bans went out. This wasn't done randomly. Some players who were using these unauthorized clients drew warnings or short term bans. The rest got perma banned. There's likely to be a very good reason Kabam had for deciding which players were permanently kicked. It wasn't just for side loading the game client.

Since you also said that you sympathize with those who can only use unofficial channels to download the client, some people are only banned for 7 days, and then what? After the ban is unblocked, he still cannot download the client from the official channel, so what is the difference between this ban and a permanent ban? What is the meaning of your sympathy? Have you really considered them?

You're quickly rising ranks to take the gold medal for the worst forum user ever

My account was suspended yesterday for some BS 3rd party software violation. I have never installed from anywhere other than the Play store on my S23. Always been official. I mainly just do AQ in a retirement alliance. I'm not trying to do anything shifty. If they don't get this resolved I'm just going to delete the game. Been playing for 8 years and just stayed uncollected for years until they did the champ giveaways recently. So I decided to up one level, I think paragon. I don't care about 7 stars. I haven't been trying to finish any solo content. I'm basically on coast, and then get suspended for 7 days. No warning. Didn't do anything wrong. I got stuff expiring, missing daily rewards, and as a key contributor in AQ for my alliance it's not only affecting me, but their AQ rewards, too. Glad I never spent a bunch of money, just spent too much time. 😞

Dude, they suspended you. I don't think they are worried that much about threats of quitting.

He can ban him today without giving any clear reason, and he can ban you the same way tomorrow.

Hi everyone. Obviously there is a lot of consternation and confusion right now over the recent bans. I just wanted to clarify a few things.

As the official post says, playing on a client distributed by anybody other than us or our official partners could get you flagged for a ban. Yes, this means if you sideloaded the game you were likely flagged. Our official partners are Apple, Google, Flexion and Steam. We distribute the game on PC through the downloader at https://playcontestofchampions.com/ Those are the only official channels to get the game, if you used any other means you were likely flagged.

We tested this algorithm against hundreds of known good accounts without any false positives. Having said that, in any action this big, there might be edge cases that couldn't be accounted for in advance. We are obviously taking these reports seriously and investigating these cases.

I've been playing this game for over 7 years, never used any unofficial distibutions, only google play store + recently your pc launcher, yet I got banned.
To write a ticket I had to check my payments and after realising how much money I have spent I came into conclusion that is enough.
I WAS your legitimate client.
I WAS spending money.
I NEVER cheated.
Yet you banned me for 7 days resulting in me missing on raid, aw, aq rewards. This influenced my ally because there was not a possibilty to clear the map.
I got response to uninstall the game and reinstall from official distribution, well guess what, I HAD it from official distribution. I have lost all my trust in your company so I won't be returning to the game because I don't know when again You'll decide to wrongfully ban me.
You lost a client, I know nobody cares about me(well apart from my allymates - I was still in the game for them, despite all the bugs, all unfair defenders, etc.)

Farewell fellow summoners...


Zwierzakol was not an impostor

Can we get clarity on this statement

"Another couple thousand accounts have received warnings for potential infractions"

What was the warning?

1) 7 days bans

Or

2) a Msg you have been warn for potential infractions

So I have had a quick look through the forum, and didn't noticed anyone mentioned they got a Warning Msg of Potential Infractions, just the 7, 30 or permanent ban.

If this is the case then I think it might where the problem is.

Find and banning modder is much need for the game, especially in the competitive mode, BG and AW.

However with a new system running live for the first time with this big number of players being tag , maybe Kabam could of be more cautious with the ban implementation.

If Kabam feel confident with certain players then sure permanent ban or 30 days so is great.

But I assumed that those got 7 days was the 2 thousand players that "Portential" infractions, Which seem far too risky and also pointless for Kabam. A better approach would of been a Warning msg in the line of:-

"We believe you may bave infractions our T&C, please ensure you only play MCOc from our official clients, if unsure please contact T&C or our customer support for more details"

Banning "potential" infractions players for 7 days actually does a lot of damage unnecessarily.

For someone it would affect their double check or chased item, or just grinding for 4th July.

For other like @Priyabrata said being labelled as a cheater might be worst.

Also for every one player been nand for 7 days, 29 other players also get disrupted in AW and especially Raid next week.

All based on potentially infraction.

Personally (if all of this is the case) I think it might worth Kabam unban all players with 7 days ban first thinf on Monday, honestly it wouldn't make any different to Kabam but wpuld ease this whole situation.

I agree. It should've been a warning without suspension and a way to submit that you did get your software officially or for further review to get more info. I've done nothing wrong and got a 7 day suspension, and not a happy camper. I've got enough real life BS going on, I don't need this **** from something that's supposed to be a release.

Can we just kick them off the forums as well? Not only have a bunch of people cheated and been caught but now half the threads are about how they are so hard done by and that it was a mistake they got banned.

I hope you get banned soon for no reason! Let's see how much calm u stay! 🙂

You were banned for a reason.

Oh, I don't think so! Kabam will come up with some BS reason! Only time will tell!

There r YouTubers who r mercing openly and yet their accounts haven't been suspended! So it's no surprise that Kabam has actually messed up big time! 🙂

...
No one got banned for no reason.
....

Yes, because Kabam is unerring and their software doesn't give any errors

Everybody makes mistakes. But if Kabam's software was banning people for literally no reason, meaning it was just banning players randomly, we would definitely know it by now. First, because of the high probability of baning a high profile player, and second because Kabam has been investigating reports of errant bans, and so far hasn't actually found any errors. So if errors exist, they have to be very rare, and if the ban algorithm is making very rare error they almost certainly have to be being generated for some very odd corner case reason that makes those accounts unique for a very specific reason. Widespread random errors would have been spotted by now.

To be honest, the more snarky comments like this I see, the less inclined I am to spend time trying to sort through this all. I've already spent more time looking, reading, and questioning, and so far the best I've come up with is wasting the devs time looking at a proven fraud.

I am someone that has assisted players getting erroneous bans reversed. I don't assume everyone is lying or wrong. However, I have also seen enough vacations to Mexico to know that the vast overwhelming majority of the time people are lying or mistaken or both. The bans I got reversed were not random, they both had very obvious reasons for triggering the bans. Bans from out of nowhere for no reason are vanishingly rare.

Hey , another question. Again, assuming they aren't lying (as I write this I wonder if the question is futile). There are claims of people who have multiple accounts and some getting banned and others not. And claiming it's on the same device. Is there any way that could happen?

Yes there is. No I can’t elaborate on precisely how.

Well there’s one obvious way. One of the accounts was played on another device not shared by the other account, and something there is what triggered the ban.

There are other less obvious ways but I can’t elaborate, and in fact I don’t know the precise details myself (anticheat techniques are one of those things even I am unable to get a lot of details about due to their ultra sensitive nature. Most of what I know comes less from people willing to tell me and more from me figuring it out myself and having people nod while whistling at the sky).

I care about the game, and I sympathize with the people affected. What I won't do is abandon logic.

Tell me the logic of accepting someone's money and then telling them too bad you shouldn't even have been here to give me the money in the first place.

So question do you believe that ppl shouldnt be held accountable for their actions you really feel the whole blame falls on kabam because that is what it sounds like i get it it sucks that the players in mainland china dont have a legit way to get the game correctly that use android phones and yes ethically with the money issue you have it is not right but kabam sends out warning atleast every few months in game not to use 3rd party also what if kabam just sent those ppl an in game warning you think at the end of that 7 days anything would be different for them no it wouldnt and kabam never forced those players that spent that money in the game it is obvious kabam made a decision that wasnt easy you want them to just abandon the fight on cheaters just so they can continue playing the game or is your thought process to just let that region use 3rd party to play the game but everyone else cant cause that would be a big slippery slope right there

I do believe thety should be held accountable, also I do believe there should come out with a better solution as a next step.
I am not buying the "new technology" story. i am sure this is something that could have been implemented years ago when mods started showing up. I think its a last resort to a situation they lost complete control after 10 years. A new game restricting the access to a huge market like China from day 1 or year 1 wouldn't have been as profitable as restricting it after 10 years would it?
I have used other apps on android that stop functioning if you download the apk from somewheere for years. Like I said lipstick on a pig to call it new technology.

Kabam is not claiming to have literally invented new technology. “New tech” is what game companies generally refer to new technical implementations. When someone asks for a particular effect in the game or a new feature, the devs will often say that would require new tech. They aren’t saying they need to wait for someone to invent it, they are saying that particular technology doesn’t exist within their game systems. Kabam has been using that terminology for many years now, and it predates Kabam’s entire existence by at least a decade that I’m aware of.

There are many techniques for detecting or otherwise blocking cheaters and other prohibited behavior that currently exist but Kabam has never implemented or had the resources to develop. I’ve discussed quite a few with Kabam over the years, and I’m pretty sure they’d implement all of them in a heartbeat if they had the resources to do so. But the game wasn’t originally designed to support them, and for various reasons there are significant challenges to either implement them or deploy them that go beyond just writing the code to support them. As we’ve seen with this latest ban wave.