Arc Raiders developer Embark has announced it’s stepping up its anti-cheating policies yet again, and this time it’s taking no bullshit. (Thanks, PC Gamer.) In January of this year the studio declared it was going to start issuing permanent bans to its worst cheaters, but things are about to get a whole lot less generous. From now on, says Embark, there will be “no warnings, no second chances,” with anyone caught cheating being immediately permabanned.
“Ahead of our big update on October 8,” writes Embark’s Aleks Grøndal on the Arc Raiders blog, “I wanted to talk directly about something that has been frustrating for the community and our team: cheating.” Detailing the developer’s constant battle against the creators of cheating software, the post goes on to lay out what has been implemented so far to detect and block exploits and cheaters, including third-party software and its own “in-house models built around machine-learning and other data.” There are also plans to bring in more software, including Elytra Anti-Cheat, all with the intention of creating systems that are quickly able to identify cheating behavior.
In the past, this led to warnings and eventually bans, but it seems that both Arc‘s players and Embark have had their patience worn too thin. “Early on, we were overly cautious about applying permanent bans to first-time cheaters,” Grøndal writes. “We’ve heard the frustration from the community, and we agree that we should have handled this differently. Permanent bans are now standard for all known cheat programs and, as a matter of policy, any account caught using cheats is permanently banned. No warnings, no second chances.”
This will go as far as hardware bans, preventing cheaters from just starting a new account, and according to Embark, “we were recently able to lower the threshold at which these types of bans are applied.”
Jumping the queue
The post goes on to implore players to understand that these systems can’t ban players in real-time. An awful lot of the angry noise from Arc Raiders‘ players comes when seeing streamers obviously cheating, and demanding to know why they’re not immediately sanctioned. “Anti-cheat systems can’t ban a player the moment something looks suspicious,” Grøndal explains. “Doing so would create the risk of incorrectly banning legitimate players. The system analyzes behavior over multiple instances to give us a high-degree of certainty that fair play is compromised. Once this is determined, a permanent ban is issued.” However, the team is also watching those streams and video uploads, and responding when they, too, spot obvious cheating taking place.
There’s also the issue of “queue teaming,” where players deliberately appear in the same solo lobby and team up against those playing fairly. Embark reckons it’s reached a point where it can get on top of this too, and in the last few days has started separating known teaming groups in their attempts. “Five days later, we saw 85 percent fewer players engaging in this behavior. Spoiled raids dropped from around 1 in 50 to 1 in 300, with no meaningful impact to queue times.”
October 8’s update is called Frozen Trail, adding a new chilly map called Pendola Pass, a massive ship called the Frigate to break into, and a group of new enemies. There’s the four-legged Bully, a sneaky foe called Skulker, and a stationary turret of death called Hydra. Expect new weapons as well, and most excitingly (to me) a grappling hook, useful both for retrieving distant items and as a new means of traversal.
