Respawn recently announced that it has banned over 2 000 players from the Apex Legends server, due to “dashboarding” and abusing a matchmaking exploit.
Apex Legends is now a much safer place to play, as Respawn has banned over 2 000 players for “dashboarding” and abusing a matchmaking system that lets high-level, or Predator, Legends take on less-experienced Bronze-level players in ranked play. Respawn’s Conor Ford, who is responsible for security on Apex Legends, took to Twitter on Friday, 30 July 2021, to reveal that of the 2 086 accounts that had been banned, 1 965 were cheating on PlayStation 4. Of the 121 accounts remaining, 62 were on Xbox consoles, 44 on personal computers (PC), and 15 on Nintendo Switch.
Ford also revealed that the reported cheaters were removed from the game for “dashboarding”, which is when Apex players intentionally quit back to the Sony dashboard before reputation points (RP) can be deducted for a low finish in a ranked game.
In addition, Conor admitted that the team had identified a second exploit that enabled some high-ranked players to infiltrate low-level lobbies, so that they can ‘farm’ RP against lower-ranked opponents. The cheaters have been subjected to “matchmaking bans of varied lengths depending on the extend of abuse.”
Ford later replied to his original tweet, stating, “Sucks to miss the opening of a new season, come back next time around and enjoy the game how it is meant to be played.”
Despite Respawn successfully banning cheaters from the Apex servers, a lot of players claim that they have been banned even though they did not cheat in the game. One player stated, “That is cool and all, but what about those who have been wrongfully banned because their accounts were hacked? Like mine? I know it is impossible to tell if accounts were taken or not, but what happens to the innocent people that have to pay for what others did; not them?”
The tweet continued, stating, “I am asking because my account was hacked, they used cheats and I got banned. After putting so many hours and so much money into what I considered my favorite game in recent memory, this sucked. I have tried to appeal several times but nothing.”
Respawn has yet to reply to the gamer’s tweet.