[FAQ][PSA] The latest prohibited modifications warnings and bans

[MedvedevTD]

Dear players,

 

I would like to offer you this FAQ about the recent warnings/bans for using prohibited modifications. Let me clearly state that this is the summary of everything that was discussed and stated on the topic yet and it’s definitely not “breaking news”. If you still want to have better understanding of what’s happening or missed earlier publications, please read on.

 

Are you sure it’s working as intended and there are no false positives?

 

The answer will consist of several parts.

Tech-wise: yes. While there is always some theoretical chance that things will go wrong we are very serious about our detection system. Nobody in the team could possibly want to hurt innocent players, so before any action is taken, everything is double and triple checked. I’d say, we can only be more confident by sending a programmer to you to manually and directly check your system and game client. But that of course is not viable and, given the track record of the system, is not needed. However, not everybody flagged indeed has ill intentions - but that does not cancel the necessity to apply the rules. More on that separate topic later.

 

Messaging-wise: mostly yes. Thanks to your immediate feedback, we've found several communications issues in this wave, and all of them will be fixed. They are: in-game notifications for first time offenders will be improved (more clarity and the call to read email for full details). Due to org issues NA players received old (still relevant but less detailed) email, and EU players were contacted approximately one day later than other regions. But these are arguably minor issues that do not affect the system in general, and as I said, we will improve the information flow. Sorry for any inconvenience you might have experienced because of that.

 

Now I know that there are several requests that we still cannot fulfill and let me tell you why.

 

Some of you want to know the details of violation and ask for proof. Thing is, unless there is a programmer, you, and your PC locked in a room, there is no proof you can't contest. Any user could do clean install, and claim he never did anything wrong. We, however, cannot give out the details of our system because they will immediately be passed along to the wrong people, reverse engineered and that will hurt our efforts for fair play greatly. What important is the motives. We don’t want to hurt a single innocent player. That’s basically suicide strategy for the game from any perspective, and there are zero reasons for us to encourage false positives. On the other hand...those who did break the rules intentionally are interested in creating unrest and putting as much pressure on us as possible. Not only that - they sometimes are told to create unrest, file deliberately false support tickets and complain. Yes, we do monitor their forums, obviously, and if you do (I do not encourage you to do it), you know that.

 

Some of you also ask for advanced individual guidance and monitoring. “What exactly do I need to uninstall to be safe, double check me?”. Well, there are two general types of prohibited software. One messes with scripts.zip, the other messes with dynamic libraries. It can be a mod or a tool, even for “purely visual” effect, but everything in this category create vulnerabilities in your game client. And there could be dozens of variations of such software. So there is simple answer: do clean install, read the email from us thoroughly and use only the safe, approved mods and software listed on our Forums. When in doubt, please, be on the safe side. We cannot physically dig into each system, but we know what is safe to use, and we tell you about it all the time.

 

Speaking about visuals, why can't you allow Reshade and alike software, it's so cool? We're not cheating, we just want to customize how the game looks!

 

Yes it is cool, and if we could, we would gladly allow any customization you want. But let's be clear - it's not happening. Even a simple research showed that using the same principle (interacting with dynamic libraries) it's possible to create an illegal mod or even a malicious program, and try to mask it, either from the end user or from the detection. If we allow Reshade, we will leave the door vastly open for exploits and create hundreds of grey cases nobody will ever sort out. So no, we don't think that Reshade is bad conceptually, but it is indeed unacceptable for our game and our situation technically. Sorry, but fair play is more important, and there are arguably viable alternatives like Nvidia Freestyle (again, check our mail and official forum thread). They are checked, they are safe to use.

 

People say they are banned for official Mod Station, an approved modification or modpack. Why are you punishing people for using what you approved?

 

We don't. First of all, we have a dedicated crew checking all mods, including their interaction with the detection system. If we approve a modification or modpack, we officially confirm that any player can use it and it's fair play. That, however does not mean that this user won't be flagged for any other software that falls under prohibited categorty. Unfortunately some people, as we notice, don't understand that half-deleting the prohibited modifications or software and then installing the approved ones won't help. Please, follow the instructions in email, and pay attention to details. Even if you think you uninstalled the threat, you could have missed something. Be on the safe side.

 

But everybody is raging, and you banned thousands of people like it's nothing!

 

First of all, the overall community sentiment about this is very little. I will go on and give you some reference numbers though - on each region approximately 1000 people were detected for the last period, and we have a couple of big topics and approximately 100 Customer Support tickets (per region). And from these tickets, by the way, a big portion is either "but I only used Reshade", "but I don't read email from you, how could I know?" sentiment or "It was not me, it was my buddy playing!". Additionally, we clearly saw that the prohibited modifications' authors are trying to raise the negativity and directly ask people to complain and file false CS tickets, which is expected, as they cannot guarantee any proper "service" to their "clients" when people get banned for a reason. I already mentioned that. So, while I am definitely NOT saying that every unhappy person is a cheater in disguise, please take the drama with a grain of salt at least.

 

But what if your system fails some day? You will just cover it up with such attitude.

If our system ever fails technically, we will improve it, and issue both official apologies and appropriate in-game compensation to all affected players ASAP. There is no condition under which we can even consider banning honest players and covering it up.

 

However, please try to understand, that when warning emails and officially published rules are in place, and the system is working correctly, we cannot be flexible. If you use Reshade and don’t pay attention to what we try to relay to you, you will be permanently banned after a warning and 7-day ban. If you are in heavy doubt about your modifications, but decide to rely on luck instead of thorough check, you can get in trouble. If you, by any chance, paid for a prohibited mod and think that its “developers” care about you, I have very bad news - they don’t care, don’t have any obligations, and they won’t save your lost account.

 

If we want the game to be “cheater-free”, we all have to accept the cost of following the rules.

 

Thanks for reading, and if you have any other questions, I will do my best to address them in the next few hours.