MoHW suspicious PB ban wave

by X_Elmer_J_Fudd_X
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MoHW suspicious PB ban wave

★★★ Newbie

Hi,

 

I'd like to discuss about something weird that's happening in MoHW community. Our community is pretty small nowadays. Few months back total number of players was approx. 50, today it's no more than 20-30 active players. Game was left alone to die right after relase without any support. I'm still amazed that handful of maniacs, including me are still playing this underrated but still pretty solid shooter.

 

I'm playing this game since relase on 2012. I've spent more than 3k hrs playing on couple accounts and did many hrs tracking down cheaters and putting them on our anti-cheat forums.

Couple months back we've noticed some of the players receiving PB Global Bans. That information could be seen on procon of one servers ran by our friend. What surprised us the most, virtually every banned player was average or even poor player and no one would expect them to cheat in any form. After 3k hrs in game some things are obvious. In these cases it wasn't at all. Second thing, since 2012 it's downward spiral with MoHW active players. I've been here since the beginning and I've seen the demise of this great game. Since beginning of 2018, I assume number of active players were no more than 50-60. These mysterious bans I'm talking now took out as much as half of remaining players, players that weren't suspected by anyone. Before the PB Global Bans started to appear many players (including those banned ones and me) noticed problems with PB. They were kicked out from servers after seconds from joining in. Some couldn't handle these problems and gave up (probably they were already banned), some solved these problems after numerous PB repair/reinstallations. Shortly after, bans started to appear. Like I've said, it was weird but I wasn't concerned much until my account was banned same way. As soon as I got banned, I was 100% sure these bans were false positive. I'm grown 37 y.o. man and polish city cop. I've seen and I've been through lots of * in my life but I can tell you, I'm honest person. I'm not playing any other games at all, I barely find time to play Warfighter as I have other priorities in my life, including my family and firearms which are my hobby. I've always played clean and did my best to keep this game clean.

Believe me or not, I've always played clean.  I never had any purpose of cheating or even trying to cheat, especially after all the work and time I've spent to keep MoHW clean. I haven't done anything to bypass PB or interfere with it, period.

Unfortunately after signing trouble ticket to EvenBalance, they replied that my ban was right and they will investigate any credible information regarding any software that could trigger false-positive. Most of banned players started to discuss about any possible common thing that could trigger these bans. Shortly after at 25th of December second ban wave hit MoHW community, taking down another part of remaining players. Some of the players were banned again, after they bought new copies of the game. Some were banned on their another accounts, including me on my main account.

 

Couple facts:

  • All banned players were using Win7 or Win8.1 OS. There wasn't single player banned who have Win10. That's a fact, all banned players confirmed that.
  • Some (if not all) players had problems with Origin client. It says "Software upgrade available" but it doesn't upgrade. Upgrade info appears occasionally but it doesn't upgrade.

  • It seems that most if not all banned players were playing their last rounds at this server:

    http://battlelog.battlefield.com/mohw/servers/show/pc/1cccd320-cef5-45c5-8ee8-e3d615ff55e4/KiLL-ForS...

    It has some weird plugins as some people claim.

Guess I cannot post list of banned players here nor screenshots from procon. All these bans are Global PB Bans. Most players that were banned were rather poor and average ones. There wasn't slight dose of suspicions towards any of them. Some were actually helping our anti-cheat forum so I don't believe these bans were legit, especially I was banned twice. I've submitted another trouble ticket to Evenbalance, I'm still waiting for their reply. Fact is that these bans are taking place also in BF4 as some YT publishers claim.

 

My best guess, these three factors above have something to do with that ban wave. Could you guys contact EvenBalance and try to investigate this issue? Taking down more than a half of remaining MoHW population isn't normal, especially those who were banned weren't cheating. I'm damn sure of it.

 

Thank you on behalf of the rest MoHW players,

Luke.

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Re: MoHW suspicious PB ban wave

Community Manager

We are unable to discuss any sanctions with yo @X_Elmer_J_Fudd_X.

 

If you have a sanction on your account then you will need to contact Even balance to appeal the ban: https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/battlefield/punkbuster-bans-and-violations/

 

Darko

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Re: MoHW suspicious PB ban wave

Community Manager

We are unable to discuss any sanctions with yo @X_Elmer_J_Fudd_X.

 

If you have a sanction on your account then you will need to contact Even balance to appeal the ban: https://help.ea.com/en-us/help/battlefield/punkbuster-bans-and-violations/

 

Darko

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Message 2 of 5 (442 Views)

Re: MoHW suspicious PB ban wave

★★★ Newbie

Hi,

 

I don't want you to discuss any sanctions with me but with EvenBalance. I've already did contact EvenBalance with this issue but they aren't interested in investigating it. I'm pointing out a real problem that isn't only mine but more than a half of MoHW community. Half of remaining players have been banned, that's not coincidence and these bans are truckload of BS. Same things are happening in BF3 and BF4. EA is fully aware of it as there are many threads about it. I don't care about BF3 and BF4 since these games were already cheater-fests. MoHW was relatively clean: small, dedicated community that ran their own private servers and banned virtually every single cheater described at our forums, period. Now half of us were banned in matter of couple months, some were banned twice after they got new CD keys. If you think that they were cheating, you're damn wrong.

 

You're community manager. I, as a member of community, am notifying you about this problem. I'm damn sure I haven't broke any TOS nor EvenBalance regulations. I've payed EA not EvenBalance for the game that isn't running in MP mode anymore because of some false PB ban. Same goes with +20 banned players. EvenBalance isn't interested in solving this issue, we are 100% sure we haven't cheated nor trying to bypass PunkBuster in any way. That's why we'd like EA to contact EvenBalance and investigate this problem.

 

The whole situation looks pretty weird. If these bans are being issued to stop people playing old EA games and force them to buy BFV then it won't work.

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Re: MoHW suspicious PB ban wave

Community Manager

I understand that you are frustrated @X_Elmer_J_Fudd_X  but if you or anyone else has an Even Balance sanction on their account then you will need to contact Even Balance to appeal this sanction. There is nothing we can do on AHQ to overturn the sanction.

Darko

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Re: MoHW suspicious PB ban wave

★★★ Newbie

We did contact EvenBalance with no effect. I wouldn't be here if I've ever cheated or these +20 bans occured in 2k community. We're talking about massive ban wave that struck MoHW community twice and took out more than a half of its population. It isn't normal. That's why I'd kindly ask for your help. I'm not asking you to lift our bans or force EvenBalance to do it. I'm asking you as Community Manager to push this case futher and make EA take a closer look at it. I'd be really pleased if EA had contacted EvenBalance and ask them to investigate these bans according to all the factors I've mentioned above: old Windows versions, Origin client upgrade failure and previous PB problems that occured with every single ban. That's all.

 

I realize EA hasn't got slightest dose of interest in MoHW, they've shown it back in 2012 but we're still customers. Even though we play obsolete and abandoned game. When FairFight had banned lots of major YT publishers at BF1 and they started to make it public, you reacted pretty quick. I don't see any difference between BF1 and MoHW players, apart from FF vs PunkBuster. I know you can push this case forward and I'm damn sure EA may ask EvenBalance about these bans. There were lots of false-positive ban waves before and EA reacted upon them. Question is will you do it again for handful of MoHW players...

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