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Bethesda Bans Fallout 76 Player With More Than 900 Hrs Playtime For Having Too Much Ammo.

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman
https://twistedvoxel.com/bethesda-bans-fallout-76-player-900-hrs/

Bethesda apparently has banned a legitimate Fallout 76 player who spent more than 900 hours in the game to farm rare materials, ammo, and other in-game loot. They banned the account for having too much ammo according to the ban report shared by the player.

Reddit user Glorf12 claims to have played more than 900 hours of Fallout 76. He made a thread on Reddit where he detailed his experience with the game after playing it for more than 900 hours. He wrote a guide that explained the farming locations for the various in-game loot including legendary and rare loot. After he made the thread, he was banned by Bethesda Softworks.

This was apparently against the terms of service for Fallout 76 and they claim that this was done through an exploit.

The user speculates that his ban might have to do with trading with another secondary account that was used to trade some of the loot that he farmed, and players could have reported him after seeing such a high ranking character trading with a low ranking one.

Another issue was with how the system kept check of the ammo that was owned by him. Due to the weight limit, it was simply not possible for him to keep a stock of more than 100,000 ammo as reported in the ban message. He dropped the ammo to free up inventory space and get over the weight limit but apparently, the system keeps track of every ammo that the player collects in the game.

Bethesda Softworks has replied back to the user with a message that they want him to file a support ticket so the team can look into the case, but banning such a dedicated player on the chance that he is exploiting in-game doesn’t really paint them in a positive light. It will simply add more to the mess that is Fallout 76 and its launch, and this is not ending any time soon.

 

Ramzy

Member
It's not a permanent ban. Perhaps he can take this time to do something else with his time. Maybe play some more worthwhile games. Speak to his family. Go outside. Anything.

P15lHaK.png
 
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JohannCK

Member
It's not a permanent ban. Perhaps he can take this time to do something else with his time. Maybe play some more worthwhile games. Speak to his family. Go outside. Anything.

P15lHaK.png
It's still a horrible thing to do and their whole "THIS DECISION IS FINAL SHUT UP AND STOP CONTACTING US WE HAVE NOTHING TO TALK ABOUT" attitude in the whole thing is deplorable.

That being said the schadenfreude this game keeps giving is hilariously enjoyable.

Also there's a Bethesda community manager helping the guy out but I'm honestly kind of ambivalent about this, it's nice and all but it also amounts to "only players who are popular on social media can get special help, everyone else we screw over for no reason can shut up and go away".
 
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JohannCK

Member
Actually, It was found later that the dude duped.

1) He says it’s a false positive

2) Even if you’re not inclined to believe him, the guy was writing a guide on how to farm ammo and was documenting where all that ammo came from so it seems more likely than not that he’s telling the truth

Allegedly they just went and banned anyone who had "too much" of any item without bothering to check how they got those items, or how long they'd been playing the game, simply assuming that anyone with too many items in a game which has scavenging and stockpiling as a core element was cheating

I got banned for having too much ammo.


I don't think I've once held more than 36,000 ammo at one time. 36,000 being a very specific number I am stating as that was the rough amount of 5mm ammo I had collected.


Here are some game mechanics. 5mm ammo drops from super mutants in a large quantity when it drops. I have used maybe 1000 5mm bullets in my Fallout 76 career. The bandolier perk card reduces ammo weights by 90%. Thus when Bandolier is equipped, my 5mm ammo was listed as having 0 weight. So I assumed I would just carry it forever if it weighed zero right?


Eventually I learned that that ammo did indeed have weight and I dropped it all on the ground. Then thinking that I should help other players instead, I picked it all up again and put it in a suitcase in Watoga Train Station.


Similarly, I have never had such a ridiculous amount of ammo. What I have done, however, is trade ammo back and forth between my main and secondary account as I try to decide on what guns I aim to focus on. Given the sheer amount of time I have spent playing I have legitimately collected ludicrous amounts of ammo.


My theory now is that the system is able to detect when you pick something up, but not where you got it from, nor if you dropped it. It seemingly just keeps a totals tally.


If my theory is correct a player could non stop trade ammo back and forth between another player and both would get banned.


EDIT: Super super detailed breakdown of why I think I got suspended. Involves knowing game mechanics.


To further describe my recent play time. I started leveling a second character for the first time. To do that I transferred over several thousand ammo and some armor/guns for various levels to use. Being that my main has stupid amount of play time I have a ton of ultracite ammo. 50x stable flux is easily attainable in an hour. Combine ammosmith and super duper perk cards, and you can craft huge amounts of ammo at once. In addition ultracite ammo crafts more ammo by default than regular ammo. So with the above perks you get even further bonuses.


To get all the ammo/gear from 1 character to another I had to move it to my second account to then shift it over to my main account on the second character. Sort of confusing but 1a >2>1b. I then decided that character b would primarily be grenades and mines. So I opted to move back the ammo. 1b>2>1a. Character A on account 1 now has all of the ammo again while I decide which guns I intend to specialize with. After I choose the guns (shotguns in this case) I give most of the other non used ammo back to account 2. During all of this I put the ammo into world containers, as that is far less hassle than the trade menu. And in multiple occasions I would have picked it all up again on 1 account. More or less fat fingering the R key to pick up everything while I'm alt tabbed on the wrong account.


Usually I have a stupid amount of ammo, still nothing close to the numbers they state. I can't access my account now to see how much ammo I have. In each of the ammo trades to the mule account it would've involved thousands and thousands of ammo. As stated in other posts, I know how to very quickly and easily farm ammo.


This is the best description I can give as to my understanding as to why my account is suspended. In how I play I cannot think of any other method my account would show as having the stated amounts of ammo.
 
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Imagine spending more than 900 hours on a critically-panned game such as Fallout 76. He deserved to be banned for being a loser. #FuckBethesda

spend that much hours playing quality games such as Hideo Kojima's masterpieces Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3, 4 , PW, and 5.
 
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Ribi

Member
And these devs are supposed to live stream themselves playing the game soon lmao can't wait
 

LMJ

Member
Bet they wouldn't have banned him if he had some of that trendy Umstoppables Merch (pay to win limited offer)



Shame the company has become such a joke in such a short time, honestly never thought they would go down this way...real shame
 

Woo-Fu

Banned
You probably could get banned for that in Apex Legends. Oh wait, this doesn't work, I'm thinking magazine capacity.
 
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mcjmetroid

Member
Imagine spending more than 900 hours on a critically-panned game such as Fallout 76. He deserved to be banned for being a loser. #FuckBethesda

spend that much hours playing quality games such as Hideo Kojima's masterpieces Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, 3, 4 , PW, and 5.

I'm with you here but from a business perspective surely this is what you want?
You want those insane players spending all their money and playing the game constantly to keep the online numbers to a reasonable level.
Nobody should be spending that long with this game but still he has every right to it's his business.
 
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Inviusx

Member
A reddit user ran some numbers and concluded that getting that much Ultracite ammo (which is expensive to craft) would likely be impossible to do legitimately. Even with 900 hours played.
 
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ethomaz

Banned
It is ridiculous to be banned for the own gaming fault that left you do that lol

Blame your coders not who is playing.
 

VertigoOA

Banned
Dupers have a lot of excuses when it comes to explaining how they’ve been cheating.

I don’t think they should be banned tho. Bethesda has the ability to just wipe their inventory.
 
Bethesda should be giving this guy a medal not banning him. The definition of a die hard fan of your critically panned game and you punish him for playing to much and having fun with it. What are they thinking??
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
This is getting stupid now. I mean who the hell is running this sinking ship?

Look, I played the game, I own it. I actually enjoy it a lot. Its got its fair share of issues, yes. And I'll be honest some of them are huge. I tend to play it more like a single player game, so I'm clearly not the target audience. All I wanted was a new Fallout with coop, and this...….. Isn't really it.

But banning players for taking advantage of your own stupid bugs is silly. Ban players using real cheats, wall hacks, aim bots etc. Don't ban a player who spent nearly 1000 hours in your broken ass game and stockpiled ammo. AMMO?!

This game is a case study on what NOT to be like as a major developer...
 

VertigoOA

Banned
This is getting stupid now. I mean who the hell is running this sinking ship?

Look, I played the game, I own it. I actually enjoy it a lot. Its got its fair share of issues, yes. And I'll be honest some of them are huge. I tend to play it more like a single player game, so I'm clearly not the target audience. All I wanted was a new Fallout with coop, and this...….. Isn't really it.

But banning players for taking advantage of your own stupid bugs is silly. Ban players using real cheats, wall hacks, aim bots etc. Don't ban a player who spent nearly 1000 hours in your broken ass game and stockpiled ammo. AMMO?!

This game is a case study on what NOT to be like as a major developer...

Bethesda is being too harsh with the bans. And it’s algorithm based too. If you mass crafted 100,000 items within a short time period they assume you’re duping; which most likely you are.

900hrs in under 6 months is definitely unhealthy. I’ve known a few ocd types with these issues. However, that’s also just the type to create a ludicrous lie grasping at straws to justify cheating; because when they get caught; hurting their videogame armories is similar to killing their most beloved pet.

I believe these bans are temporary. You’re given the option to have your character and inventory wiped. But that may be a case to case incident.

People give the Austin studio shit for this game but I’d argue that they’re the first studio to finally try and start fixing bethesda’s shit engine.
 

Shifty

Member
So are they going to make him write an essay on why guns are bad before they unban his account? :messenger_smirking:
 
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Diddy X

Member
I actually see this as more good than bad, I mean, Bethesta was quite honest by banning a cheater eventhough they knew it could cause big backlash, he seems like a huge (biggest?) Fallout fan but he deserved it. It's the thing with an online game, fairplay before anything.
 

Pimpbaa

Member
Damn this weed must be really kicking my ass, because I can't possibly be reading that someone played 900 hours of fallout 76. My combined hours of playing elder scrolls and fallout games since morrowind is less than that. 900 hours of a good game is excessive, but fallout 76? Does this person have a mental disability of some sort? Because that's the only way to explain it. I mean...WTF?!
 

Ellis

Member
900 hours that could have been better spent trying to get his end away.

Even just sitting on a park bench staring at normal people like a creeper, someone or something is going to fuck you eventually.

This man is a fucking fool.
 

Ramzy

Member
300 hours a month in a game...jesus there's like 720 hours in a month dude was literally sleeping and playing this game

Fallout 76 was release November 14th 2018.

He was banned February 20th 2019.

That's 98 days.

900 hours / 98 days = Minimum of 9 hours a day, every single day, 98 days straight.

Aside from the amount of time he's spent hunched in front of his PC for nearly 100 days straight, i just can't understand how he managed to find 900 hours worth of content in that ded game.
 
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Diddy X

Member
900 hours that could have been better spent trying to get his end away.

Even just sitting on a park bench staring at normal people like a creeper, someone or something is going to fuck you eventually.

This man is a fucking fool.

Give me those many hours on a park and I will learn every single learnable fact about the park itself but also make friends and maybe even get a girlfriend.

#nocreep
 
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