New anti-hack system

[Jematthie]

 

 

 

Friends often lie, it's the internet, nobody wants to be seen as a cheater. If you can put your hands in a fire for a friend, you will get burned if they swear they didn't cheat.

 

 

The appeal center is there for honest players, unless you are banned for investigation purposes you are guilty. It's not "innocent until proven guilty", we banned you because we proved that you were guilty through methods we never gonna disclose. We are not disclosing them for obvious reasons.

 

 

It really depends on the ban itself, all are done manually to ensure there isn't anything wrong with the bans. If you are banned for macro- usage or any 3rd party programs you are guilty by default otherwise you wouldn't have been banned. Mass-account bans are often due to people sharing accounts, it is indeed very hard to distinguish who is who sometimes, if you have 30 accounts use the same device. Mass account bans are 99/100 cases successful and people get unbanned.

 

 

 

If someone gets banned, is there any way at all to get unbanned (without creating a new account)? hackers/cheaters” get banned, but everyone deserves a second chance right? Instant perm ban really hurts a lot of people.

[Qeight]

Nevertheless, I'm most concerned about the fact that the GMs are currently still unable to show the evidences to the banned user.

Actually it's not GM related, we often can't share evidence due to privacy concerns. This is not GM exclusive.

 

In an ideal world, evidence should be provided while ensuring that showing them won't enable potential breaching of the system.

In an ideal world nobody would cheat.

 

I understand that it is not possible to do so atm. I still do hope that Eaty and other staffs would be able to figure out an alternative solution for this. Because currently, it does make me and other players feel unsafe to go for an intensive hunt, afraid of getting banned incorrectly by the new system.

You can play for 24 hours straight, hunt for 24 hours straight. If you are on your computer and do everything by yourself then there is no need to worry. The second you start doing anything automated, we will catch that eventually.

 

I have friends who got banned and admitted they used macro. I also have friend who got banned and swore with his life that he did not macro. It really makes me feel sad to think he might really did not macro and a mistake happened. An evidence being shown would return peace of mind to all parties here.

We have different layers of moderation for a reason, if the appeal gets rejected, every user is free to make a complaint. That complaint goes to the Team lead (those are people who are in management and leader of their respective teams for a reason). They look over the complaint and see if anything was wrong. If the Teamlead also concludes that nothing was wrong on our side. A new complaint can be made which goes to an Admin/Moderation Admin. Those are people with the highest rank in the staff team, who have the most experience and the most access. If those also conclude that nothing was wrong then your friend was simply lying to you. I had cases of very close friends being cheaters, I had people with 6k hours cheating and swearing in their appeals that they never did anything but soon after the appeal gets rejected, they admit.

We give 1 appeal for everyone and those only get overruled very rarely if there was a mistake. If you lie 4-5-6, 10 times in your appeal but admit to it the second your appeal gets rejected, you won't be unbanned. Our Appeal process is there for honest players. For us, only honest players are worth keeping around, why should we unban lying players who most of the time just continue doing the same stuff.

 

Macros have a very specific procedure to avoid any kind of faulty bans. If someone was banned in this time, they did use macros with 100% certainty.

 

Most specifically, I hope the anti-cheat system does not include something so simple like a staff pms a player, he's afk and do not respond, or don't want to respond, thereby largely influence the probability of him getting identified as a macro user.

We never PM users when checking for anything. Useless in our eyes, that is not evidence for us for the exact same reasons as you said.

 

Many hunters enjoy multi-tasking, so not getting disturbed by random pm is a right they should have. Not answering a pm might cause suspicion, but should not be a deterministic factor in this case.

I can't speak for how it was back in the day (2015-16) but in the current years the procedures was perfected to avoid any mistakes.

We don't want innocent players to be banned, Eaty for sure doesn't want that. Why would we want to destroy our own game by banning innocent players? It doesn't make sense, so of course we work only with the best things to our hands.

 

I hope you will be able to shed some lights for us with this, about whether there would be plan to fix the "can't show evidence" issue, and whether the system uses some primitive methods like the "not answering pm" example i just showed to determine a macro user.

Evidence will never be shown, for starters most bans are caused by detection (still manual bans though, nothing is automated). It's practically impossible to you evidence. It's where people opinion split, including mine at the beginning but I put full faith in Eaty. I didn't at first however my time outside of staff helped. Eaty wants people in this game, even if they cheated in the past. He wouldn't allow faulty ban system, or people getting wrongly banned. It simply goes against what he wants, therefore I trust his detection.

 

As for macro users/bots we catch on our own, we can't reveal those due to the fact that videos might show the way we check for things and thus making those methods worthless.

It's just not gonna work for us.

 

 

If someone gets banned, is there any way at all to get unbanned (without creating a new account)? hackers/cheaters” get banned, but everyone deserves a second chance right? Instant perm ban really hurts a lot of people.

If you are guilty, you are getting a permanent ban. You cheated in the game and deserve a permanent ban but EVERYONE deserves a second chance however you will only get that if you are honest. The guilty/innocent question is already done, you are guilty, that is why you are banned. At that point only honesty will get you a 2nd chance, if you lie your ass off, well what do you want us to do? Unban you? Its a common misconception that we have to somehow prove to you in an appeal that you are guilty and that you have to prove your innocence, that is not the goal of an appeal. We simply want to know a few things, on the w-question in German.

[Lvdwulp078]

but if you've just been telling the truth all this time, PRO still doesn't trust you. why should i lie now that i am guilty of getting an unblock.

 

and they don't listen to your answers and questions.

[Sin]

We never PM users when checking for anything. Useless in our eyes, that is not evidence for us for the exact same reasons as you said.

 

Good to know, then this myth is cleared out.

 

Macros have a very specific procedure to avoid any kind of faulty bans. If someone was banned in this time, they did use macros with 100% certainty.

 

As for macro users/bots we catch on our own, we can't reveal those due to the fact that videos might show the way we check for things and thus making those methods worthless.

 

I am bit concerned about this. It sounds like the "very specific proceduce" is pretty easy to counter from what you said. Personally, I do hope it's intricate enough and will evolve to the point where the staffs can be confident to reveal the evidence without getting afraid of someone countering it easily. That would resolve all the uneasiness that the new system might have brought.

 

I really do hope the system is 100% fool-proof as it was stated to be.

[Captaineg]

Why haven't I eaten a ban for 4-5 years? Because I'm not cheating. I don't have a second account. I farm for hours as much as I can. So far I couldn't even find 1 form or shiny rare poke. But some friends find those Pokemon somehow. You know, of course, that I don't mean every one. I hope this becomes even more ban number or banning those who have a second account using cheat. If you are really clean, you don't smell any.

[Qeight]

but if you've just been telling the truth all this time, PRO still doesn't trust you. why should i lie now that i am guilty of getting an unblock.

and they don't listen to your answers and questions.

See above, it's not a question of innocence or guiltiness. If you consistently deny having used something, you are lying.

If you can't admit to using something, you will never be able to accurately answer other questions.

 

In fact if you scream insults at us, swear and consistently deny cheating then there isn't much we can do for you.

 

I am bit concerned about this. It sounds like the "very specific proceduce" is pretty easy to counter from what you said. Personally, I do hope it's intricate enough and will evolve to the point where the staffs can be confident to reveal the evidence without getting afraid of someone countering it easily. That would resolve all the uneasiness that the new system might have brought.

Detection bans, it's impossible to show evidence and for videos we make as GMs. Those procedures our fool-proof, with 100% certainty. You wouldn't be banned if you were actually there playing yourself.

The system isn't anything new, it's been in place for +1 year and GM methods even much longer. As for your friends/your clanmates getting banned now. It is simply backlog we have to work through due to shortage of GMs at times. It is pretty save to say that people will lie to you.

 

Why haven't I eaten a ban for 4-5 years? Because I'm not cheating. I don't have a second account. I farm for hours as much as I can. So far I couldn't even find 1 form or shiny rare poke. But some friends find those Pokemon somehow. You know, of course, that I don't mean every one. I hope this becomes even more ban number or banning those who have a second account using cheat. If you are really clean, you don't smell any.

I would love to have players who only play cleanly, it's something we strive for however its never gonna happen.

 

 

I am open to any questions as long as I can answer them.

[Digomenezes]

Hi Qeight, sorry for interrupting this conversation, but i want to ask you a thing, some years ago me and my friends took ban for multi accounts in the same IP, but we talk in the time with Noisia, we took pictures of us playing together (we like to hunt together and do like 50/50 to help each other), i just want to clarify if this is ok nowadays, because we're in 3 in my friends house playing right now (i can send a picture of us showing this thread to prove its veracity), it is ok (because of multiple acc in the same ip (internet) we all have 2 notebooks and 1 pc)?

Thank you for your time!

[Qeight]

Hi Qeight, sorry for interrupting this conversation, but i want to ask you a thing, some years ago me and my friends took ban for multi accounts in the same IP, but we talk in the time with Noisia, we took pictures of us playing together (we like to hunt together and do like 50/50 to help each other), i just want to clarify if this is ok nowadays, because we're in 3 in my friends house playing right now (i can send a picture of us showing this thread to prove its veracity), it is ok (because of multiple acc in the same ip (internet) we all have 2 notebooks and 1 pc)?

We had a case where 3 cousins lived together who all had 4 different accounts. It's fine, mass account bans happen but they get unbanned as I said 99/100 cases. It's not a very serious offense however still is under GMs due to the fact that mass account more often than not is related to cheating or real money trades.

[Digomenezes]

We had a case where 3 cousins lived together who all had 4 different accounts. It's fine, mass account bans happen but they are get unbanned as I said 99/100 cases. It's not a very serious offense however still is under GMs due to the fact that mass account more often than not is related to cheating or real money trades.

Thanks for your fast reply mate. My regards.

[Sin]

Detection bans, it's impossible to show evidence and for videos we make as GMs. Those procedures our fool-proof, with 100% certainty.

 

I earnestly hope for that.

 

In the end, I hope the responsible staffs can be open-minded, and will not stop trying to improve and/or find loopholes in system. Nothing can't be improved. There have been so many well-known misconceptions in the world that get reversed, and so it will come to no surprise if one day a mistake would be found in even the things we do daily.

 

I am speaking this on the event where my friends swore to me with their life that they did not macro, while on the other hand, I have listened to the guarantee from the staffs that their system is fool-proof, despite the fact that the evidences cannot be shown. Thus, I hope you can undestand where my uneasiness comes from. I am really torn and do not know who to trust, without having a look at the evidence myself.

 

It's a hard job, but I do believe the recent ban wave recently has benefited the game greatly as a whole.