Battlefield 1 Players Banned for Being Too Good
By Jason Gallagher 09 January 2017
Some Battlefield 1 players claim they were banned for being too good at the game after running afoul of the title’s FairFight cheating detection system.
It’s not uncommon in first person shooters for there to be a wide gap in skill level between the best players and the average Joes. Some gamers can get so good at FPS games, in fact, that their less experienced victims end up accusing them of hacking or cheating in the in-game chat. That’s essentially what’s been happening recently to some outstanding Battlefield 1 players, only it’s the game itself that’s making the accusation.
Some of the most skilled Battlefield 1 players claim to have gotten their accounts banned in recent weeks because they are just too good. Battlefield 1 uses a real-time cheat detection system called FairFight to detect botters, hackers and other troublemakers, and that seems to be where the problem is occurring. FairFight uses a function called Algorithmic Analysis of Player Statistics (AAPS) to compare a player’s current stats against their average level of skill, according to Kotaku.
The idea is that if a player’s statistics suddenly jump up in an out-of-the-ordinary fashion thanks to a crazy kill streak, that’s potentially a red flag that could cause FairFight to lock down the account. FairFight also scans for events “which are not possible to achieve without the use of hacks.” But several highly experienced Battlefield 1 players have found their accounts suddenly banned even after thousands of hours of playing the game normally.
Kotaku notes that player SpartanHoplite received a permanent ban after notching 202 kills to 8 deaths during a match where he used a bomber. Player Minidoracat, who is currently placed 4th on the global leaderboards, was temporarily banned in December. While these examples may seem kind of funny to outside observers, it’s often no laughing matter for the players themselves. One skilled player who received a ban was able to get in touch with a DICE producer on Twitter to discuss it, but for most players, there is no guarantee that DICE or EA will lift a ban once FairFight has dropped the hammer. As of press time, neither DICE or EA has officially commented on this issue, but it will be interesting to see what happens if the publicity causes more gamers to come forward.
As for the rest of us, Battlefield 1 remains one of the best games of the last year. The game’s most recent update in December added a Spectator Mode that lets users view the action in 1st or 3rd person or take to the sky in a bird’s eye or free cam view – although one would hope the additional camera angles have made it easier to figure out if someone is actually hacking across the map or not. DICE has other irons in the fire as well, with a new custom game mode called Bleed Out coming January 18, to be followed by a larger February update.
Battlefield 1 is out now on for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
