Apex Legends has banned over 2,000 players for "dashboarding" and abusing a matchmaking exploit that lets high-level – or Predator – Legends take on less-experienced Bronze-level players in ranked play.
Interestingly, of the 2,086 accounts that had been banned,1,965 were seemingly cheating on PS4. Of the 121 accounts remaining, 62 were on Xbox consoles, 44 on PC, and 15 on Nintendo Switch.
Respawn's Conor Ford – who's responsible for security on Apex Legends – said that this time, cheaters were removed from the game for "dashboarding", which is when players intentionally quit back to the Sony dashboard before reputation points (RP) can be deducted for a low finish in a ranked game.
Ford also said the team had further identified a second exploit that enabled some high-ranked players to – somehow – infiltrate low-level lobbies in order to farm RP against lower-ranked opponents. Those caught cheating have been subjected to "matchmaking bans of varied lengths depending on [the] extent of abuse".
These are matchmaking bans that have varied lengths depending on extent of abuse. Sucks to miss the opening of a new season, come back next time around and enjoy the game how its meant to be played.July 30, 2021
"Banned 2,086 players early this morning for abuse of an RP loss forgiveness exploit (dashboarding) and abuse of a matchmaking exploit allowing high-rank players into Bronze lobby to farm," Ford said on Twitter (thanks, PSU).
"These are matchmaking bans that have varied lengths depending on [the] extent of abuse. Sucks to miss the opening of a new season, come back next time around and enjoy the game how it's meant to be played."
ICYMI, Apex Legends was recently hacked by unhappy Titanfall players to protest against cheating and hacking in the original game, imploring developer Respawn to address it. Confused? Yeah, us too.
Initially, it was thought only PC players were affected, but it was later revealed that the hack was also affecting console and Switch players across the world. Instead of the usual modes on offer, players were instead encouraged to "visit and repost savetitanfall.com", a website that says "it's time we speak up" about the "hacker issues" developer Respawn was allegedly reluctant to fix.
Have you ever wondered why Apex's ring-designer Wattson runs about "a bit awkwardly" whilst carrying her weapons? Apparently, it's intentional; principal animator Moy Parra recently explained that it's because the team "wanted to capture this natural innocence in all of Wattson's move sets".
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