[2023] An Update on Recent Bans

I wanted to make this post because there have been a few recent threads relating to the topic of false bans.

Although we are constantly tweaking and updating our detection methods, there has not been any fundamental change we have made that could lead to false bans.

Unfortunately, there is always a possibility for human error. We mitigate this as far as we can through spot checks and sampling as well as exception reporting, which flags unusual trends.

In addition, there are some ban types where although the ban is almost certainly correct, there are other factors such as account hijacking that could result in the account holder not being complicit with the cheating identified.

For this reason we offer players the opportunity to appeal most bans.

There are some types of bans that cannot be appealed, but these are only applied where we have a very high degree of certainty that the ban is correct, typically (1) very obvious, high velocity and easily identifiable bots and (2) bans that are only applied in situations where false positives are incredibly unlikely.

As mentioned, human error can be a factor. Unfortunately, we recently had a situation in which a significant number of accounts were banned, and as a result of our internal checks we identified that some of these bans were incorrect.

It remained likely that most of the banned accounts were botting, but we were not prepared to allow genuine players to be banned for no reason, and so we unbanned all the accounts from that period. False bans in this incident typically lasted about 8 hours, and naturally we apologise to any genuine player who was blocked from playing in this time.

Currently, we are going back over other bans that have been applied using the same tools and analysis as the recent incorrect bans, if we find anything of concern, we will do the right thing and unban any genuine players that we identify. Early indicators are that this appears to be an isolated incident, but it will take us a few days to complete the review.

Despite this recent incident we remain confident that ban accuracy is very high, the Anti Cheating Team do their level best to target ‘botting hot spots’, manually check HiScores for integrity and remove thousands of cheat accounts and billions of gold from game every week.

At the same time, if things occasionally go wrong, I think it’s important that we ‘own it’ and be clear that a mistake has happened, and to assure you that we will learn from it and improve.

I’ll keep an eye on this thread, and will try to comment further when I can.

Edit 1: The incorrect bans from the identified time period that also link to the associated detection method were all removed last night (19/06). We will continue to unban any incorrect bans we find, but the identified time period has now been fully checked

Edit 2: There are a number of comments about checking HiScores, although ACT do what they can to check them, it can be challenging and clearly some obvious cheats remain. That is a fair call and challenge on us, so I will explore what we can do further on that.

External link →

I wanted to make this post because there have been a few recent threads relating to the topic of false bans.

Although we are constantly tweaking and updating our detection methods, there has not been any fundamental change we have made that could lead to false bans.

Unfortunately, there is always a possibility for human error. We mitigate this as far as we can through spot checks and sampling as well as exception reporting, which flags unusual trends.

In addition, there are some ban types where although the ban is almost certainly correct, there are other factors such as account hijacking that could result in the account holder not being complicit with the cheating identified.

For this reason we offer players the opportunity to appeal most bans.

There are some types of bans that cannot be appealed, but these are only applied where we have a very high degree of certainty that the ban is correct, typically (1) very obvious, high velocity and easily identifiable bots and (2) bans that are only applied in situations where false positives are incredibly unlikely.

As mentioned, human error can be a factor. Unfortunately, we recently had a situation in which a significant number of accounts were banned, and as a result of our internal checks we identified that some of these bans were incorrect.

It remained likely that most of the banned accounts were botting, but we were not prepared to allow genuine players to be banned for no reason, and so we unbanned all the accounts from that period. False bans in this incident typically lasted about 8 hours, and naturally we apologise to any genuine player who was blocked from playing in this time.

Currently, we are going back over other bans that have been applied using the same tools and analysis as the recent incorrect bans, if we find anything of concern, we will do the right thing and unban any genuine players that we identify. Early indicators are that this appears to be an isolated incident, but it will take us a few days to complete the review.

Despite this recent incident we remain confident that ban accuracy is very high, the Anti Cheating Team do their level best to target ‘botting hot spots’, manually check HiScores for integrity and remove thousands of cheat accounts and billions of gold from game every week.

At the same time, if things occasionally go wrong, I think it’s important that we ‘own it’ and be clear that a mistake has happened, and to assure you that we will learn from it and improve.

I’ll keep an eye on this thread, and will try to comment further when I can.

Edit 1: The incorrect bans from the identified time period that also link to the associated detection method were all removed last night (19/06). We will continue to unban any incorrect bans we find, but the identified time period has now been fully checked

Edit 2: There are a number of comments about checking HiScores, although ACT do what they can to check them, it can be challenging and clearly some obvious cheats remain. That is a fair call and challenge on us, so I will explore what we can do further on that.

External link →