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ArkontePB's avatar
ArkontePB
Seasoned Newcomer
17 hours ago

8.908 hours gone due to "Gameplay Enhancement" ban

Hello! my name is Sebastian, i'm from Argentina, known more in-game as "snow in summer", i'm playing Apex since 2019, more specifically i'm a first week player (i even got that badge in-game), over 48.000 career games top #6 rampart worldwide, top#1 rampart South America with over 93k kills and a total of 167k career kills, (here my apexlegendsstatus profile:  https://apexlegendsstatus.com/profile/uid/PC/1003512767457)

I've got a combined 8908 hours in total of gameplay on EA and Steam (2k on EA app, 6.7k on Steam). 

---

Few days ago i tried to log in-game just to see that my account has been desactivated since January 2

Checked emails, i saw nothing, checked on "Penalty History" here on EA website, and i saw that i was permanently banned due to "Gameplay Enhancement",  i tried to appeal few weeks later providing them a lot of proof of my innocence (videos, screenshots, task manager screenshots, programs installed, launch options) however my appeal was denied with a very vague automatic response

It's worth mentioning that 3~4 weeks before my ban, i was constantly using Cloudflare WARP (which is a vpn) to help me fix the insane packet loss i was having on NA servers (since im playing from Argentina) and many times i had to turn it on in the middle of the match (since packet loss was going up to 70, 80%), and the game would automatically kick me from the game with a message saying that "This profile is not permitted to play online" but later it would reconnect me to the match normally (wondering if this may have triggered something)

A week later, my ban fully disappeared from the Penalty History, i thought i was unbanned, however i'm still banned in-game because "Your account has been desactivated"

I was thinking about retiring from Apex since this game is not giving me the same joy it was giving me before,  all of my friends stopped playing a long time ago and i was honestly just playing to farm kills with rampart and reach my goal of 100k kills (fun was not the main reason) 

So this ban did not affect me *so much* as i thought it would, however, i was intrigued about this "Gameplay enhancement ban" and upon searching on EA forums & Steam forums & Reddit, i've noticed that in the last few months there has been an alarming increase of bans for the same reason, not only on Apex Legends but also in BF6, so i'm creating this post to add another one to the list of previous post, which hopefully will increase awareness from EA devs & ToS team regarding this issue

A part of me is telling me that i should "move on" and take this as a sign from "god" since as i mention before, i was not having fun playing Apex anymore, so this is a perfect "excuse" to finally stop playing, but another part of me is telling me that "I should fight" for all the memories & time and money invested in this game (4 heirlooms in my account) and for the love i have for this game which has been "there" in my life since 2019.

Anyway, if someone that reads this recognizes me, i want to tell you that it was a pleasure to play Apex with everyone, i've got so many good memories and they will be forever in my mind, in fact, not only they will be in my mind but also on my Steam screenshots (got over 600 playing Apex)

 https://steamcommunity.com/id/lalalllla/screenshots/?appid=1172470&sort=newestfirst&browsefilter=myfiles&view=grid

And my youtube channel where i uploaded lots of clips & videos playing Apex

https://www.youtube.com/@nier_snowinsummer/videos

And if someone is reading this and it's curious, i'll leave pictures of my stats and also my launch options, maybe other people that got banned for "Gameplay enhancement" have something similar that may give us an idea why we triggered EAC 

-novid -forcenovsync +exec autoexec -dev +fps_max 144 +cl_is_softened_locale 1 +mat_minimize_on_alt_tab 1 -no_render_on_input_thread +reticle_color "2147483648 2147483648 2147483648"

Cheers and i hope that anyone that got wrongfully banned gets an unban soon or later!

3 Replies

  • I've experienced something similar to you, so I can deeply understand how you feel.

    Unfortunately, based on my observations online and my own personal experience, EA's Terms of Service (TOS) department is currently in a state of disarray. Most appeals are ignored and rejected by AI or similar automated tools, with only a very small number "luckily" being received by real people still on duty.

    I know you're hoping to find help on the EA forums, but the bad news is that under EA's latest terms of service, only the "all-powerful" TOS department has the authority to review and unban accounts. EA staff on the forums or elsewhere have neither the authority nor the interest to address your case, so don't expect them to provide any substantial help.

    If you are truly innocent, please persevere with your appeal, my friend. I understand the pain and injustice of being wrongly banned, but so far, besides persistently fighting for your innocence, we lack other means to combat this injustice.

  • ArkontePB's avatar
    ArkontePB
    Seasoned Newcomer
    11 hours ago

    Hey man! thanks for your reply, 

    "If you are truly innocent, please persevere with your appeal" these things are very subjetive, because maybe for Respawn eyes, using "+reticle_color "2147483648 2147483648 2147483648" in launch options is agains't the rules, or using Cloudflare or a VPN is also agains't the rules, 

    So i could easily say "I'm innocent" but for EA eyes, i'm not, so they'll keep rejecting my appeals, (if they are actually reviewing them)

    And we need to understand that we are just simple people playing their game, we are not famous streamers with thousands of followers, and i mention this because i saw some months ago some streamers such as Mande 

    https://www.reddit.com/r/apexlegends/comments/1cytp6e/mande_gets_banned/ 

    And also "Nix" (another popular streamer) get banned for the same reason as us "Gameplay enhancement" 

    https://x.com/NixAims/status/1978436368326877451

    However, because they are popular streamers, they got unbanned after 24hs+ 

    If you look at Mande's post from reddit, paradoxally (who is an apex moderator) is saying "Apex is a dumpster fire. If this happens to a regular user how are they gonna get their account back?" 

    And it's absolutely true, if actual pro players that are streaming everyday get banned, and they only get unbanned because they have contacts with EA because they are pros & popular streamers,  how a regular user is going to get unbanned? and the answer is simple, we won't

    Anyway, the idea of this post was not to "pls unban me" but it was to raise awareness about these bans.

    I can tell you with confidence that i am not "missing" Apex, so even if i get unbanned (which is something that would make me happy, mostly because of all the time invested in this game) i still don't think i'll keep playing

    But i'm sure that there's people out there wanting to REALLY play this game but sadly they can't because they got banned for no reason, so all we can do is just hope that these bans start happen more "often" to more people, which hopefully will make EA devs focus on this issue!

  • Rhodes_RedTone's avatar
    Rhodes_RedTone
    Seasoned Novice
    6 hours ago

    I understand what you mean. Judging from what has happened, for EA, streamers and professional players are their gods; EA will only grovel before them. But for ordinary players, EA doesn't care at all.

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