Arc Raiders Developer Embark has announced that it is once again stepping up its anti-cheat policy, and this time, it’s taking no bullshit. (THANKS, PC gamer.) In January of this year, the studio announced that it would begin permanently banning its worst cheaters, but things are about to get a lot less generous. From now on, Embark says, there will be “no warnings, no second chances,” and anyone caught cheating will be immediately permanently banned.
“Before our big update on October 8,” writes Embark’s Aleks Grøndal on the Arc Raiders blog, “I wanted to speak directly to something that has been frustrating for the community and our team: cheating.” Detailing the developer’s constant battle against cheat software creators, the article then presents what has been implemented so far to detect and block exploits and cheats, including third-party software and its own “internal models built around machine learning and other data.” There are also plans to introduce more software, including Elytra Anti-Cheat, all with the goal of creating systems that can quickly identify cheating behavior.
In the past this has led to warnings and ultimately bans, but it appears both BowEmbark and Embark players had too much patience. “At first we were too cautious about applying permanent bans to new cheaters,” Grøndal writes. “We’ve heard the community’s frustration and agree that we should have handled this differently. Permanent bans are now the norm for all known cheating programs and, as a matter of principle, any account caught using cheats is permanently banned. No warnings, no second chances.”
This will extend to hard bans, preventing cheaters from simply creating a new account, and according to Embark, “we have recently been able to lower the threshold at which these types of bans are applied.”
Skip the queue
The post goes on to implore players to understand that these systems cannot ban players in real time. Lots of angry noises coming from Arc Raiders” Players come forward when they see streamers blatantly cheating and demand to know why they are not immediately punished. “Anti-cheat systems cannot ban a player as soon as something seems suspicious,” says Grøndal. “This would create the risk of wrongly banning legitimate players. The system analyzes behavior across multiple instances to give us a high degree of certainty that fair play is being compromised. Once this is determined, a permanent ban is issued. “However, the team also monitors these video streams and uploads and responds when it also detects obvious cheating.
There’s also the issue of “queue teaming”, where players deliberately appear in the same single-player lobby and team up against those who are playing fairly. Embark believes it has reached a point where it can get this issue under control as well, and in recent days has begun to split up known team groups in their attempts. “Five days later, we saw 85% fewer players engaging in this behavior. Spoiled raids went from roughly 1 in 50 to 1 in 300, with no significant impact on wait times.”
The October 8 update is called Frozen Trail, adding a new cold map called Pendola Pass, a huge ship called Frigate to break into, and a group of new enemies. There’s the four-legged Bully, a sneaky enemy called Skulker, and a stationary death turret called Hydra. Expect new weapons too, and most excitingly (for me) a grappling hook, useful both for picking up distant objects and as a new means of traversal.
Gn tech
