There’s a difference between an altered client and the game being bugged. Altered client = hacking/cheating, bugs being taken advantage of = exploiting. At the very worst to me it looks like he exploited a bug, but it could have been an honest mistake of not knowing. I’ve played completely broken games overrun with cheaters and this issue is like a level 1 out of 100. We’re talking one player (that we know of) out of thousands of active players, and who had the balls to come on here and admit his mistake- so he has my respect. Not to mention the impact of this is minuscule. Personally, I get attacked by people with dragons that are designed to take out towers 20 levels higher than what I have, and sometimes I still defend my base successfully. It’s 2 levels. It’ll be ok, I promise.
Are you sure that the towers stats increased from lvl 160 to lvl 162. Shouldn’t that be determined before someone decides another player was using a bug to their benefit.
And by the player informing “support” about the bug - they weren’t trying to hide the increased tower levels. This is definitely exculpatory evidence.
It’s not just one player.
The other one we saw was just smart or fair enough to stop after 1 tower at 161 
Things are no accident anymore when all your effective base is levelled up beyond boundaries intended.
That is just blatantly bug exploiting. And bug exploiting is gaining unfair advantage. Which is cheating.
Cheating is not exclusive to hacking. Any violation of the t.o.s. is considered cheating. Account sharing or selling is considered cheating. As is exploiting bugs. I even quoted for you where they said that manipulating things in an unfair way, such as storing towers during pvp to give an advantage to another team is cheating. Using 3rd party apps like tap apps is cheating. There was even a time when bots were considered cheating
The impact is irrelevant, it is the act of doing it in the first place.
Admitted they suspected something was wrong, let support know about it and then still did it anyway. idk, doesnt seem very worthy of respect to me. If they were actually remorseful then you’d think they’d have stored those towers until the issue was taken care of.
Hitting down isnt a violation of the game rules though. exploiting bugs is.
Im not saying this is worthy of a ban (though others have been temp banned for less) but there should be consequences for any kind of cheating. One does not just accidentally perform 26 level upgrades. If you’re going to have t.o.s. then everyone should be expected to abide by them.
Consensus in my team chat is you see a green arrow you upgrade, but this comes from a perspective of not realising before doing the upgrades where the limits on levels are.
Agreed, it’s not the player’s job nor responsibility to keep track of current game settings. Also, surprised this hasn’t been brought up yet, but cheating means to act dishonestly or unfairly to gain an advantage, which essentially means there has to be underlying malicious intent involved, since you have to PROVE the person was acting dishonestly. All I see here are people jumping to conclusions and no definitive proof
Actually no, no one has to do that. In this game we can be banned for any reason or perceived reason and we are required to prove our innocence
Plenty of people have been wrongfully banned for perceived wrongs that they have to then go through the process to prove are untrue which can take weeks or even months. Often just because someone reported them. No evidence needed.
It doesnt really matter what we say, it’s up to PG to decide how to deal with it. But I do agree with what was said above, PG rewards exploiters way too often. We saw that with the last big breeding event screw up.
It’s PG’s fault for creating the situation (assuming this was a PG-created situation) but it’s still our fault if we take advantage of it. If a cashier leaves their drawer open and turns their back or walks away, it’s their fault for doing so but you’re still at fault if you reach over and grab some money.
@ZeroDucksGvn That’s wild to me. I’ve never heard a dev team banning players without actual proof before. So hypothetically we could all report a player for x reason and they would be banned without investigation? It’s like modern day McCarthyism. That thought just never occurred to me
People have been banned due to something they might of said in LC being taken wrong. They could say something sarcastic, but due to not being able to see eachs others faces. Someone might take it literal and report them. If so many people report a player then theyre banned proof or not.
A long time ago there was an instance where this exact thing was discussed on the forums.
The issue centered around the Impossible Prim Buffs scenario where the gained values wouldn’t be right. PG perceived the person to be hacking, when the community vouched that it was a wide and common issue.
I tried my best to provide any kind of proof but the refused to believe my wife was anything but a cheater and they never unbanned her. She was a casual gamer at best so she just moved on and said thanks PG for helping me get rid of the game addiction if anything was left at that point.
I did feel , the way they judge different cases are totally random and no fixed protocol / operating procedure could be noticed.
I miss the days when the internet had actual free speech. Imagine losing like 4-5 years worth of progress because a few snowflakes decided to report a single comment and then devs decided to permanently ban the player. No temporary restriction of chat, no temp ban, just a straight up perm ban. Is there a list of no no words someplace I need to look at before commenting on things in the game, like good grief
Im offended.
There I changed it, but now I sound like Charlie Brown. I know you were joking but I ain’t taking no chances.
Duck never ducks anyone outside the duck pack. No worries.
yawn. every time someone brings this up on the forums i think of the interviews they did way back when with people that were outraged by not being able to drink and drive anymore. limiting freedom!!!
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In my almost 7 years playing this game, I have never heard of anyone getting banned “without any proof” and, with respect, those here who have indicated this has happened is confusing the concepts of evidence of guilt and establishing guilt, thus implying that PG may ban someone on a whim.
The issue lies in the fact that PG will sometimes ban based on initial evidence, before a fulsome investigation. This is little different than someone charged by the police and held in jail pending trial, except that if the banned player doesn’t complain (I guess analogous to pleading guilty) there is no further investigation. Perhaps a better analogy is if the government says you owe them taxes, they can withdraw the amount from your bank account before the appeal process has been completed. You don’t appeal, bye bye money.
As for those who ask for the ban to be overturned, we have seen cases where, on review of the evidence, the player was reinstated. When PGJared was with us, he would sometimes chime in to say that the matter was investigated, and there is no way the banned player could have achieved X without cheating.
Long story, short, to say there has ever been a ban without any evidence that a violation of the TOS occurred is BS, at least as far as what I’ve seen over my time here.
Gotcha, well that’s definitely more reassuring to hear. Thanks for the clarification.