Announcement Bots and Exploits FAQ

Dear Heroes,

Bots and exploits

The situation was getting dry and was time for another ban wave. With this ban wave, we are not only focusing on bot users but also on exploiters (e.g. daily deals, workbench).

As this is one of the most discussed pain points of our community and in the same way a very complex topic, we would like to provide an FAQ dealing with the most asked questions. With this, we want to take a firm stand on the one hand and on the other hand, give you the chance to comprehend our actions. However, please understand that we cannot provide every detail as we don’t want to play into hands of the bot makers.
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FAQ - Bots

Quite some time has passed since the last bot ban wave and there have been “new” bot users in the game for a while. Why wait until now?

After the last bot ban wave, the bot topic was not at the very top of our agenda. Content expansions, new events, item balancing, etc., were given higher priorities. The bot situation was slowly attracting our attention after the introduction of the leaderboards. Even though we received several reports from forum moderators and users we were not aware of how urgently another bot ban wave was needed. Speaking honestly, we should have set it on the very top of our agenda way earlier. However, please consider that improving and testing the bot detection consumes a lot of time and manpower.
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Is the whole account going to be banned or only the character that has used a bot?

The whole account will be banned.
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How long will the suspension last?

Bot users will receive a permanent ban.
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Will banned bot users still be displayed in in-game lists like leaderboards?

Banned bot users will be removed from the Leaderboards (both PvP and PvE).
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Are paying users also going to be banned?

Of course, they will. We don’t distinguish between paying or non-paying bot user.
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Is there a way for banned users to pay to remove their permanent ban?

No way!
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Will you provide a list of banned users?

We know that some games are publishing such lists, but the development team agreed that we don’t want to take this path of “public shaming”. Additionally, it is also a matter of data privacy.
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How likely is it that there will still be bot users left after the bot ban wave?

We have improved and tested our bot detection to make sure that our ban hammer hits as many bot users as possible. However, as you may know, this bot situation is kind of a game of cat and mouse. Bot makers will probably find a way to recode their bots forcing us to update the detection.
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What if the player used a bot 1-2 years ago? Will the player get banned?

We have defined a specific time frame that, in our opinion, ensures that we will hit all active players who were using bots. Please note that details on that matter could help bot makers decoding their bots and/or hiding for detections.
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Will there be more bot ban waves in the future?

We will find a way to continuously execute bot detections in future releases to make sure that our game stays bot free.
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FAQ – Exploits

Will players that exploited the daily deals to get runes etc. be part of the ban wave?

Players that exploited the daily deal feature to get an impossible number of runes will be affected by the ban wave as well, yes!
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What will be the punishment for the cheaters?

Detected players will get a permanent ban. We are not tolerating cheaters, exploiters, bot users, or bug abusers. We have a no-cheating-policy.
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The “daily deal” exploit has been known for a few months. Why weren’t there any measures taken against the players that abused this exploit?

Once we were able to reproduce the exploit we patched a possible fix without announcing it in the patch notes. Because if the fix didn’t work out we would have had to deal with “copycats” using this exploit. Unfortunately, the fix did not work out and some players found a way to still abuse this exploit. As we were not aware of the number of players that were using this exploit as well as the outcome, we missed the chance to react properly. However, the way our detection works it does not matter anymore if a player was using the exploit last year or last month. So, the punishment will happen, better late than never.
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You said you would need our support to report the cheaters. Shouldn`t you be able to detect them on your own? Why do you need our help?

We wanted to point out that we do not tolerate cheaters and we want everyone to feel the same way. So, if someone notices a suspicious player or views a YouTube video about an exploit, it should be reported to us instead of sharing it with the world or even worse using the exploit. We want to build a strong community that stands united against these kinds of cheaters and having your support helps us to end these situations much sooner before more people get caught up in the wide net we cast with a ban wave.
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Are the exploits still possible after Release 207?

We were able to reproduce the known exploits and are implementing changes with Release 207. We are confident that these exploits are no longer possible.
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Best regards,
Your Drakensang Online Team