Black Desert Online Faulty Bans

[midorialexandros]

This is my first time posting on the steam forums. I wanted to start a thread here to bring awareness and support to the massive false banwaves that hit Black Desert Online users this week.

While the majority of these bans were Steam users, there are some PC client users that are affected as well. After the initial day of users reporting these wrongful bans, and no information from the admin team to even know if they were investigating, they had GM Rhotaaz admit there is some kind of flaw with their anti-cheat system that predominantly flagged Steam User Accounts. They did not reverse the bans in full. Instead, two (or three, depending how you look at it) times now, that they messed up with this banwave, only partially reversed bans, and added a whole new wave of 376 accounts yesterday - that second wave also contain an unknown number of fresh wrongfully banned users as well.

They let extremely well known hackers back into the game, gleefully bragging in open server chat that they were unbanned, while many innocent users are still without their accounts. Users, including myself, have repeatedly sent ticket after ticket asking for additional information as to what they were banned for, only to be met with automated responses ( pasted below ) no support, no response from management, other than they repeatedly state they "got it right" this time. It seems their anti-cheat system, Xigncode, is wrongfully flagging something on user accounts and they are generating bans based on this faulty data. If you know of anyone who is affected, or you were affected, you are NOT alone. It's looking like hundreds of users were potentially wrongfully banned.

The reasons they gave for these bans don't even fit my mode of play. I do not, and have never, played their Shadow Arena, I am a life skiller who does not grind, and other than their two summer fishing events, I don't fish besides the occasional daily quest either. Some users were reporting late yesterday that their bans were reversed, but it is still not everyone affected.

Automated Response:

Greetings,

The use of third-party software impacting the game directly is extremely damaging both to our business and to the integrity of the game, as such its use will not be tolerated. After an investigation into your account, we have been able to verify the use of such software and have concluded to permanently close your account's access to our services.

We are not considering overturning any actions taken against players using third-party software and the decision to permanently restrict access to the game on this account is final.

You can find further reading regarding this matter on our Terms of Use.

Regards,

The GM handling the ban process has a documented history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rqx5EC22O_k&t=2s

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackdesertonline/comments/azaqst/permanently_banned_for_something_i_did_not_do_3rd/

https://www.reddit.com/r/blackdesertonline/comments/aysawp/control_your_cms_and_gms_on_your_official_discord/ei2ykqu/


The banned user megathread is here:
https://community.blackdesertonline.com/index.php?threads/users-got-banned-for-false-accusation-after-march-27-maintenance.425549/

The original announcement is here:
https://community.blackdesertonline.com/index.php?threads/banwave-shadow-arena-and-more.425427/

The follow-up announcement is here:
https://community.blackdesertonline.com/index.php?threads/banwave-update-on-follow-up-measures.428601/

MMORPG Article Here:
https://www.mmorpg.com/black-desert-online/news/black-desert-community-in-an-uproar-over-shadow-arena-hackers-and-false-bans-1000052006

MassivelyOP Article Here:
https://massivelyop.com/2019/03/29/black-deserts-big-banwave-this-week-apparently-had-more-than-a-few-false-positives/

[so]

as much as i know, community is thankful to kakao for finally dealing with cheaters and 99% of all those people complaining, raging and making such a drama out of it are players who lost their main accounts due to the fact that they made "trial" accounts in order to boost their mains.
so basically all those cheaters are making all this look much more than it actually is. no wonder or surprices there...

[midorialexandros]

Originally posted by so:

as much as i know, community is thankful to kakao for finally dealing with cheaters and 99% of all those people complaining, raging and making such a drama out of it are players who lost their main accounts due to the fact that they made "trial" accounts in order to boost their mains.
so basically all those cheaters are making all this look much more than it actually is. no wonder or surprices there...

Except that's not true. There are players - like me, who have never used shadow arena at all, made *any kind* of a test account, or done anything but play the game legitimately.

They have also announced twice since wednesday, that they still don't have it right and even more players are reporting wrongful bans. You should read all of the links and the details of the discussions. While I am sure they did catch some hackers, they basically let every known hacker go already.

[Dudeskio]

I can confirm everything OP says is true, and worse. The way they are treating loyal customers right now is disgusting, and the only reason they unbanned some innocent individuals in the first place was the outcry. The staff has broken their own rules on how investigations AND appeals are supposed to work, and they have blatantly admitted as much in the open, on multiple threads on reddit. They have been using a faulty ban system for years now, and the only reason we know is because they finally banned too many innocent players at once. It's frightening. Evidence for everything I have said can be found in the links provided in the OP.

[Ksanthia]

I'm absolutely with you Midorialexandros and others pll who were unfairly banned including me since Wednesday and yesterday. The same situation as my play DBO since June almost 7000 hours never entry SA, not even trial account. Average player without much knowledge about PC etc. Unfortunately, I didn't know that cheating is even possible in BDO until Wednesday !!!
Sending many tickets and emails (some not even related to the situation) and getting back the same copy/spam answer


Automated Response:

Greetings,

The use of third-party software impacting the game directly is extremely damaging both to our business and to the integrity of the game, as such its use will not be tolerated. After an investigation into your account, we have been able to verify the use of such software and have concluded to permanently close your account's access to our services.

We are not considering overturning any actions taken against players using third-party software and the decision to permanently restrict access to the game on this account is final.

You can find further reading regarding this matter on our Terms of Use.

Regards,


How do they respond to the customers? who put a lot of money in the product.
That is unacceptable!!!!
They did admit twice now that they did mistake but they haven't do anything to fix it, which give us more innocent ppl banned and like everybody is saying that hackers are in game again ;(

[Modrais]

What they doing now is unprofessional and disgusting.

They rely on their broken methods, which was proven faulthy for the 1st time, using it 3 times, expecting results, utter madness, only making things worse.
Keeping people in the dark while they go on a weekend, no communication at all.

Even a 6 year old knows that using the same sheet 3 times while knowing it wasn't working for 1st time is useless.

They need to do a roll back.
I haven't got banned, but who knows, i don't feel safe now, probably no one should.

[Memo]

I am also a victim of this and many more players with over 1k+ hours. I invested 4445 hours in this game and a lot of money. I don't think you understand that with the amount of money I put into this game I do not need to use any software against ToS. Why do that when you can simply just buy items in their pearl shop and sell them for in-game currency?

I have been participating in Shadow Arena less and less as the amount of hackers showing up in the game mode was increasing. I didn't go into SA for about a week or so until 30-40 min to kill some time before maintenance to get some enchantment materials for a new item I bought. I only played 2-3 rounds and logged off right after. Before doing any of this I was hitting the dummy on my alt and just attending world bosses.

[Boink]

I am wondering if this has something to do with Razer Synapse type of macros. Some gaming mouse can definitely make game task... binds fully automated and can be considered 3rd Party Software.

I'm thinking about video capturing all of my gameplay just in case LOL. I'm scared. I don't use any gaming mouse and not banned....

If false-positives happen I'm wondering for those players who were previously banned and be innocent. Feelsbadman.

I want to really know what triggered the false positive as assurance.

[Feydalin]

GM Llyrad Friday at 12:50
You need to sign out of the support site and hit the sign in through steam. Currently, you have contacted us from a trial account on the website, not steam.

Sadly, since I am unable to discuss the other account here, I will now close the ticket.

If there is anything else I can help you with today, let me know.

I hope you have a wonderful night.

GM Llyrad

Game Master




Mind you, this is after i log into the support site through steam and file a ticket. Still banned.

[Reistrix Hunter]

Originally posted by Boink:

I want to really know what triggered the false positive as assurance.

GM Rhotaaz said that some Steam accounts were flagged as trial accounts.

[Dudeskio]

Originally posted by 𝘬𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 ♡:

Originally posted by Boink:

I want to really know what triggered the false positive as assurance.

GM Rhotaaz said that some Steam accounts were flagged as trial accounts.

I would just like to point out that GM Rhotaaz is a proven liar when it comes to these ban processes. Proof in the links provided in OP. Take anything he says with a grain of salt.

[midorialexandros]

Originally posted by Feydalin:

GM Llyrad Friday at 12:50
You need to sign out of the support site and hit the sign in through steam. Currently, you have contacted us from a trial account on the website, not steam.

Sadly, since I am unable to discuss the other account here, I will now close the ticket.

If there is anything else I can help you with today, let me know.

I hope you have a wonderful night.

GM Llyrad

Game Master




Mind you, this is after i log into the support site through steam and file a ticket. Still banned.

So does that basically prove they flagged your account as a trial account???? If you're logging into the game with the steam log in - they shouldn't have a mistake here..

[Boink]

Originally posted by 𝘬𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 ♡:

Originally posted by Boink:

I want to really know what triggered the false positive as assurance.

GM Rhotaaz said that some Steam accounts were flagged as trial accounts.

So they base it on that and think that the Steam Accounts a.k.a. Trial Accounts could of not made that much progression (lifeskill and levels) in x amount of time?

I can understand those faulty bans and the GMs lifting it but why are so many Steam players that are still banned.

[midorialexandros]

Originally posted by Boink:

Originally posted by 𝘬𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 ♡:

GM Rhotaaz said that some Steam accounts were flagged as trial accounts.

So they base it on that and think that the Steam Accounts a.k.a. Trial Accounts could of not made that much progression (lifeskill and levels) in x amount of time?

I can understand those faulty bans and the GMs lifting it but why are so many Steam players that are still banned.

We don't know, no one knows why they were banned for sure. Just what kakao claimed. BUT if they are trying to repeatedly tell you that you aren't contacting them from your real account, maybe you can screen record logging in and attach a link to the ticket.

[LordeTorment]

still banned here too! and thanks for making this thread op

[Feydalin]

I did a screen cap of logging in to the support site via steam and attached it to a new ticket and they just closed it with the generic "3rd party software" response.