DE will perma BAN you if you GRIND HARD Steel Path (allegedly)

[Dariel]

So this is not the first time i am seeing this happen to people but this has not happened to me.
This now hit a friend of mine with 7 years old account at which point i would want to post a warning to all who GRIND warframe.

Problem: grinding Steel Path in the most efficient way, with a team or solo and getting 200 ish steel essence within 1h-1.5h sessions, multiple sessions a day
DE Solution:  permanent IP BAN you until year 2035.

Speculation: DE can not distinguish between bots farming steel path overnight while player is AFK or asleep and the real person farming for Steel Essence like their life depends on it.

So here is a warning to all. This is a bug with DE Bots.
Do with this information what you will, but probably don't be a hardcore gamer when you are playing warframe and since they target filthy casuals (like me), you may be banned.

[fr4gb4ll]

well, if it's only an IP-ban, where is the problem? just get a new IP by either restarting your router (dynamic-ip user only) or get in contact with your ISP (static-ip user).

though i doubt such a ban would be an "IP" one but rather a timed account ban - until someone from the support looks over it.

so you said this happened with a 4ppl team? are the other 3 also baned? faulty bot or not, this would be the logical happenstance then... i'm sure the bot behaviour in warframe leaves much to be desired for (thinking of the infamous kick-bot in open chat, for example) and also the procedure of banning/blocking/kicking first and then asking questions (if at all) much, much later (due to overworked and underpaid slaveworker... ehm... support staff ^^)  is also something DE should reconsider - not that this changed seemingly in all the years... but, here are only ever the complains of the one side of this 'problem' (the banned users) never the side of DE, who can't really defend themself against such accusations because of the law forbidding them to openly gives information about their customers away...

that's not saying they screwed up (we all know that happened often enough) but that it could also be the users fault for running specific 3rd party software simultaniously to the game - maybe not anything to cheat, but, for example, a debugger because the user also develop software or was just compiling the newest version of code from some free software, though i guess such an user would get the same warning as i do whenever i forget to close all those tools that can look and edit the memory or register... then again, we all know how easy one can disregard any pop-up on windows without reading it (bad habit btw...). so maybe that's what happened?

if the user in question feels indeed innocent, let her/him contact the support and they will sort it out - especially if this was something that happened with team. no reason to come here and start a S#&$storm on their behave - since DE won't comment this beside the usual "contact support ; account relvant things won't be discussed here ; etc ", this only looks like you want to agitate... and even this is rather pointless since we see such tries every day of the week ^^)

the only bad thing here is that this sorting out with the support will takes long, very long due to the above mentioned sla... overworked support people who diligently working off one ticket after the other (likely with the 'fifo' method too). problems with account being banned or blocked should take utmost preference in my book (and not only mine, since this is how most companies work - after all, there is time and thus money in play when a user can't 'work' like intended). so if DE isn't doing this (and idk if they do or not) then they really should work on this part.

[Kmykzy]

Similar thing happened to me too, but without the ban.

Ive done pretty much everything that is available in game, from mission types, to speedruns, to lvling up everything, to getting all gear and arcanes maxed, hundreds of HC, will probably never need to farm credits again, have enough plat and things to sell that it won't be an issue in the foreseeable future, bought most fashion that I liked both with plat and real $ for tennogen, got max standing with every syndicate and buying everything there, to all conservations, hundreds of arbitration essence, maxed helminth and all frames subsumed for a while now, enough of every material to not care about crafting costs for anything, millions of kuva, and so on, but even with all that, and even tho I could do it for a very long time now, I never ran real endurance runs, nothing past 1-2 hours at least, considering there were no special rewards for it. 

So a few days ago I got some free time from work, read that Steel Path is getting some updates and that the current meta endurance farms that I never tried were getting nerfed along with it.

So I got ready, made a pretty decent build I was sure could get me to lvl 9999 and started going. 3-4-5 hours first few tries. Prepared myself beforehand and broke 11 hours, then 13 hours, and finally managed to reach 15 hours. The next few days I tried to break that but, even tho I couldn't, I was pretty happy for getting that far in the first place and was going to still try while I had this opportunity but, surprise surprise:

"We have received data that shows you have been idling in missions for excessive periods of time, which suggests AFK farming is occurring on your account."...

I always tried doing these solo... in survival missions... so nobody could suggest being reported for leaching while afk, and if there even was a system in place to detect bots why did it take so many days and missions to detect my runs. 

 

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm happy I didn't just get strait up banned and at least got this inbox warning instead, and I stopped doing any kind of endurance runs altogether, but I don't think this is a solution to this problem, it still feels kind of weird for seeing this happen.

Like, -if the problem is the duration of the endurance, then simply add a cap, eg. after 2 hours you either die w/o revives unless you extract.

-if the problem is people using bots, then add a forced stalker spawn at random times every 30 mins or so after 2 hours that doesn't go away unless killed or something

-if the overall farm duration is the problem, then add a weekly/daily farm quota where every day you have 3 hours of normal drops after which all drops are reduced down to 10%, or for more flexibility a weekly one with 25 hours/ week

-if holding a farming spot for too long is the problem, then maybe add a battleroyals-circle-like mechanic where an area becomes too hostile

And these are just a few examples that took me a few mins to come up with and I'm not a programmer/dev so I'm sure the people that actually know how this works can come up with even better solutions to stopping potential afk farmers that could also add some more flavor to these longer survivals.

 

But warnings like this that makes me never want to touch endurance again without telling me what I did wrong don't really help. Like what do I do now? never go over 2 hours? 3 hours? or is it something related to my account and if I end up farming in one spot more than one hour I'll randomly get banned? or is it something on my PC that I should close while playing WF next time I enter a survival? or is it my name, I've had it since I made the account a few years ago, do I need to change my IGN😆?

 

So TL:DR: bump to this thread and, imo, WF really needs some bot prevention mechanics that could and probably will also make long endurance runs a little more engaging.

 

Edit: for those interested, considering I'm not going to do any farms any times soon until the afk detection system gets some updates, here is a simple tip I learned while getting bored out of my mind in these runs: run a smeeta, stay out of range of drops, wait for charm buff, start a 2'20sec timer, if no other charm buffs happens wait for next time, if another one happens then go pick up for 4x the drops (or even more if lucky). I haven't really understood the loot de-spawn mechanics (seems ~10-15' ) and this mainly because you can't postpone pickups too much considering you also need to get life support in time before it gets too low and life support drops might de-spawn too and you risk of getting stranded ending the run. eg. 

Spoiler

 

[Mest_Gryder]

Am 30.10.2020 um 03:45 schrieb fr4gb4ll:

 

the only bad thing here is that this sorting out with the support will takes long, very long due to the above mentioned sla... overworked support people who diligently working off one ticket after the other (likely with the 'fifo' method too). problems with account being banned or blocked should take utmost preference in my book (and not only mine, since this is how most companies work - after all, there is time and thus money in play when a user can't 'work' like intended). so if DE isn't doing this (and idk if they do or not) then they really should work on this part.

tbh, they are pretty fast these days, and most of the time you get an answer after 2-3 days. But I would not bet on anything getting solved, even when it is signed as "solved".

You will probably get one glance on your problem, then a copy and paste message, regardless if you are innocent, didn't mean it, excuse yourselves or want to resolve an issue. Once you get the perm ban, you barely get out of it, except you have the YouTuber influence,

So yeah, you once mess up, there will be no redemption, even when you are the nicest.
Now you may say, oh that is just a minority of people, who are affected by it, that does no harm~~~

but the rat tail is longer than you think. Free to play, is the concept that is depending on a big player base
and a fair treatment, which they did very well in the game design, but lack in other aspects.

some sources of many:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/980474/warframe-number-players-steam/#:~:text=Warframe peak concurrent player number on Steam 2016-2020&text=In September 2020%2C Warframe reached,thousand concurrent players on Steam.

 

 

 

[fr4gb4ll]

23 minutes ago, Mest_Gryder said:

You will probably get one glance on your problem, then a copy and paste message, regardless if you are innocent, didn't mean it, excuse yourselves or want to resolve an issue. Once you get the perm ban, you barely get out of it, except you have the YouTuber influence

i think they do take a better look when it's about a ban - anything else would be real bad for business in mid to long terms... youtuber bonus or not (some got a ban too occasional ^^)

thing is, whatever we hear here on the forum, reddit or tube, is most of times heavily biased by the accusd and might not tells the full story. DE on the other hand is forbidden to tell anyone not involved (and sometimes not even those who are) any details, so all we hear are, again, biased information ouf 2nd or 3rd hand - not something i would give much credit too, not in real life and certainly not in net.

ofc, mistakes can and are made everywhere and sometimes people get screwed, on purpose or not, by the 'established' methods that usually would make all such procedures more easier. and since i'd guess that this is a known fact of life to the people at DEs helpdesk, i think such issues are paid more attention too - regardless of how much information and feedback is send over to player, which in turn is not so ideal imo, but then again DE is just doing the "cyoa" tactic with this (cover your own arse) where less information is better if it comes to legal matters (likely a guidline given by some lawyers of them ^^)

[Mest_Gryder]

Am 20.11.2020 um 21:45 schrieb fr4gb4ll:

i think they do take a better look when it's about a ban - anything else would be real bad for business in mid to long terms... youtuber bonus or not (some got a ban too occasional ^^)

thing is, whatever we hear here on the forum, reddit or tube, is most of times heavily biased by the accusd and might not tells the full story. 

 

You know, the thing is. When you have not been in that problem, you will never know how it really is and let's say, someone else claims out of the blue"yo, you do not tell us the full story, I believe, I think, I hope, I actually don't know, but I wish it is this way. Let's say if there even was a violation, depending how severe it was, there should be a way to sort it out. Specially when it was, let's say... a verbal whoopsy daisy, then especially with such a high diversity and culturual differences, I would not go on a political road as a game dev and play USA world police.

[Mest_Gryder]

Another thing I wonder about, how do they decide, if it should be IP ban or just "regular" perm ban till 3035?
Is it like... okay, here is your perm ban, but feel free to make another account, so you hopefully give us your hard-earned money again for the same stuff, you already spent 3 years on grinding? Then I'd be thinking "yeaaaa... you wish."

But at IP ban it might be: "I see, you have been banned on your other account before. Now you can't play at all!"
or
*GASP* "you did commit an actual crime, by hacking and leaking information of the company or other players!"

But that is all just speculation. Specially the second suggestion is barely the case.

The good thing about being not a company, that is being afraid of being sued: 
In Discord, we actually show the people WHY someone is banned, so everyone can actually understand why.
In case someone wants to be rehabilitated, I would give them the chance, cause many bad things in the world happen due to misunderstandings. 
We don't know each other so well and maybe someone just had a bad day.

Having a go at something or someone, as well as having a bad day, can be applied on both sides, because we all are just humans and no one is perfect. 
This makes one wonder: "Is every decision legit?"

When the police does something wrong, then it is also the police investigating it, which is basically in the same team. They cover each other of course.

[fr4gb4ll]

2 hours ago, Mest_Gryder said:

You know, the thing is. When you have not been in that problem, you will never know how it really is and let's say, someone else claims out of the blue"yo, you do not tell us the full story, I believe, I think, I hope, I actually don't know, but I wish it is this way. Let's say if there even was a violation, depending how severe it was, there should be a way to sort it out. Specially when it was, let's say... a verbal whoopsy daisy, then especially with such a high diversity and culturual differences, I would not go on a political road as a game dev and play USA world police.

i'm sure it's frustrating to no end for those who indeed feel (or are) innocent of any wrongdoings and neither get help from the ones that should  (the support) and only suspicion from their fellows players but sadly, at least half of the times they don't tell the full story either or outright lie, maybe even deliberately so, if their goal was putting the service provider into bad lime-light (and yes, there are many such 'services' you can pay to seed mistrust against your competition)... and add to that, that in most countries the service providers and seller are forbidden to even talk about such things openly (since privacy law would be violated otherwise, and again their competitin might be trying to badger them doing exactly this - also something that happen often enough in the past) and thus creating a pretty one-sided story only which will even gets worse when such threads are closed down in a forum (and rightfully so, since there can't be any discusions being held which are on equal terms).

it's not really a 'policing' of the admins of a forum but more often something they have to do either by the service agreement or just because the law dictates them... and they sure don't want to be sued because of such a thing (which again, is sadly something that can easily be done in 'certain' parts of the world and there with high fines involved...)

but ofc, there are also those who just want to quell any critizism against them (rightfull or not) and lock or delete such threads and even ban their user complete...in the end i can only say that there is no much reason to complain about such things in the forum of those one complains about (stupid sentence, sorry ^^)  either one only try sorting things out with the support, or go to offsite places to rant against such treadment (again, rightfully or not) - if that helps or hurt the company in question, is a different story though... ofc, if one would be a person with medial influence, i guess the company in question would treat such thing far more carefully since there is nothing that companies or public services fear more than bad PR - even more than being sued... funny world we live in, right?