PlanetSide 2's boss on bans - says team are "busting our asses" to get cheaters out

In an address to Reddit , SOE's John Smedley explained some of the methods and miscommunications behind their continued efforts to ban cheaters from PlanetSide 2. It's clearly an issue that Smedley feels strongly about, and he doesn't pull punches when describing the team's attempts to track them down. "It's a constant effort," he writes. "We just want you to know we hate them just as much as you do and we're busting our asses to get them out of the game. Do we do it as fast as you might like? Not all the time no. But we also don't want to falsely accuse people without solid proof."

"If we have clear evidence of a person cheating we ban them. We search for any other accounts they have and we ban those too. We have very good hacking detection algorithms. They aren't perfect though. There are some things that are very hard to detect." Smedley confirms that there is no seven-day ban, but that temporary suspensions can be placed on accounts - either for actions that don't warrant a full ban, or as a measure while the team investigates suspected cheating.

"Sometimes people say 'But this guy is an obvious aimbotter'. That may be true. It may not be," Smedley continues. "There are a lot of really good people in this game. There are also aimbotting scumbags. Telling the difference can be tough for our players sometimes but it's not for us. However we are careful about who we ban. We don't just ban because some player reports and says person X is an aimbotter. We actually put in the time to confirm this."

Smedley finishes by reassuring players that bans aren't the only tool in SOE's anti-cheat arsenal. "After having personally viewed some of the major cheat sites I can tell you I'm blown away by how sophisticated some of these operations are. They are making money on this. We're working on that from another angle too that I'm not going to go into just yet (hint. it involves lawyers). But we have the resources to fight this fight and we will keep doing it."

Thanks, Polygon .

Phil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade, starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs. He eventually joined full-time as a news writer, before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims, RPGs and Hitman games. Now he leads PC Gamer's UK team, but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2, GTA Online and Apex Legends. When he's not levelling up battle passes, he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2. He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing, but still isn't sorry.