bmwv10 wrote:
However, large numbers of permanent bans may also have unintended consequences. Many players who use these devices have already invested money into cosmetics. When permanently banned, two things often happen:
- Players quit the game entirely, meaning lost long-term revenue.
- Players create new smurf accounts and continue cheating without spending money, which hurts lower-rank lobbies and new player retention.
bmwv10 While its true that revenue would be lost, I do wonder how many of those accounts were already smurf, (or even bot), accounts, (which if most of them were already smurf/bot accounts, I don't think that banning those accounts would leave an impact on EA/Respawn's revenue).
bmwv10 wrote:
First offense
- Remove ranked badges and ranked rewards obtained while cheating.
Issue a formal warning.
If the account must be banned, allow a one-time transfer of purchased cosmetics to a new account, but remove all ranked achievements.
There is a problem with doing this:
- Players would be more incline to cheat as they can just "get a new account" with all of their cosmetics, (minus the cheated stats), which would then render the punishment pointless.
- Apex progress is stored on, (and tied to), the EA Account, (which cannot be transferred, (or merged), to another EA Account).
If cheaters are suddenly able to switch EA Accounts and keep their cosmetics, then that would cause a lot of players who have linking issues to then want to also have the ability to switch EA Accounts as well, which would then cause a further issue of hackers having more of an incentive to hack into player's EA Accounts to then completely take over player's cosmetics by merging the cosmetics with another EA Account under the hacker's control, (which would most likely be irreversible).
While EA could strengthen the security of everyone's EA Accounts, each player is responsible for their own account's security by enabling two step verification, not reusing passwords, etc.
bmwv10 wrote:
Second offense
- Full permanent ban with no transfer option.
This approach could still punish cheating while reducing smurf accounts, preserving player spending, and improving overall player retention.
As mentioned previously, Respawn had said that any account confirmed to be cheating will not have their appeals approved.
In other words, if a player cheats, they are choosing to permanently losing their account with no exceptions.
On detection, enforcement will be immediate. Accounts confirmed to be using these devices to cheat will receive permanent bans after being removed from matches. We will not entertain appeals for leniency on accounts confirmed cheating.
We are committed to preserving competitive integrity in Apex Legends. If you choose to use hardware to gain an unfair advantage, you are choosing to lose your account permanently.
