I want to talk about something that's clearly affecting more players than just me, and I wanted to discuss it, false positive bans labeled "gameplay enhancement"
Yesterday, I was permanently banned from Apex Legends after starting to play again consistently for about 2 months after not touching the game for a long time. The ban message reads:
"We observed Gameplay enhancement in Apex Legends. This means using unauthorized methods to enhance in-game performance by removing gameplay constraints or improving in-game abilities (e.g. weapon, movement, or item enhancements)."
I did not cheat. I have never used aimbot, wallhacks, recoil scripts, movement exploits, or any third party software that modifies the game. I don't play on controller either so I can't really use a XIM or Titan, despite that XIM and Titan users STILL manage to roam free in top rank lobbies...
There's nothing unusual about my setup. No overlays that interact with the game engine, no macros, no VPNs during gameplay, no account sharing, no hardware modifications like DMA's. My account is old, has a normal progression history, and I've invested real money into it over the span of years. I regularly aim train and can consistently hit the 90%+ in practically any scenario I play or put time into, my accuracy and damage stats in lobbies are typically higher than any of my teammates and if there's some anti-cheat thresh hold that leads it to think my account is suspicious I could understand if I hit it, but if I did why is that not being handled more carefully?
What makes this especially frustrating is the complete lack of transparency. The ban message doesn't tell you WHAT was detected, when it was detected, or which match triggered it. You're just cut off, with no information and no way to even understand what you're being accused of.
A quick look at this forum and across Reddit shows I'm far from the only one. There have been multiple threads in recent weeks from players including Silver ranked players with somewhat decent stats and no suspicious performance spikes who have received this exact same ban label with zero explanation. One player reported being banned for "Gameplay Enhancement" while on a break, literally while their account was not in use. Another had their ban lifted after an appeal, only to be re banned a day later under the same label while they were physically traveling and offline.
The "Gameplay Enhancements" label is being applied broadly enough that innocent players are clearly being caught in it and the appeal process is doing very little to correct those mistakes. And if it is, it takes players countless appeals over and over again and month(s) of doing so to receive an unban or ANY insight on the ban itself.
When you submit a ban appeal through EA Help, you're met with a form that gives you fewer than 1,000 characters to make your case, with no ability to attach more than one clip(s), specific matches, system scans in a meaningful way. Responses are often templated, take over 24 hours even stating they "try" to respond within 24 hours, and non specific. If your first appeal is denied, there's no clear escalation path. For an enforcement system that is capable of permanently banning accounts with thousands of hours and real monetary investments, that's not very fair to the players, especially players like me who have received a false ban and are currently panicking wondering if this ban is going to be overturned and actually looked into or if it's just going to be ignored and I have to accept losing hundreds of dollars of investments and years of playtime over a mistake with the anti cheat or moderation team.
I'm not asking for the anti cheat to be remodeled in a way that cheaters can exploit and avoid detection, I'm simply asking for 3 things.
- Human review for first time permanent bans. Automated systems are not perfect (obviously). A permanent ban on an account with no prior violations should trigger a manual review, not just a template response with no context to person
- More transparency in the ban message. "Gameplay Enhancement" is vague to the point of being useless. What software? What behavior? What did I do? It's hard to contest a ban when I don't even understand what I was banned for3.
- Deeper review on appeals. One denied appeal shouldn't lead someone down a path of submitting countless appeals until it's finally cared for. There should be a process for system scans for malicious software, submission of clips to be reviewed, etc. I understand this process can take long, but for players that spent years and years on your game, and spend hundreds of dollars every time you drop a new collection event, it would show some care to the player base.
If you've received a "Gameplay Enhancements" ban that you believe was a false positive, please share your experience below. The more documented cases there are in one place, the harder it is for this to be dismissed as individual error. I believe there is a pattern here, and it deserves to be looked at seriously by the EA and Respawn teams.
I'd appreciate a careful review of not just my case, but everyone who get's affected by this, I just want my account back so I can fuel my apex addiction again, thank you.
Community Admin
