It seems that cheaters have been using a new kind of exploit within Tekken 8 that the Soul Calibur community are probably somewhat familiar with. Essentially, parts of costumes are being expanded to sizes that dramatically hinder the vision of the opponent.
As it turns out, it’s not actually a feature within Tekken 8 but is instead a cheat or mod that was never intended by the developers. According to Katsuhiro Harada, the team at Bandai Namco is preparing to ban players that are caught exploiting these kind of cheats.
This was talked about a little bit during the recent Tekken Talk live stream, but it’s necessary for Bandai Namco to be very mindful about each country’s laws regarding bans from online services. However, Michael Murray and Katsuhiro Harada were only talking about banning rage quitters (plug pullers) back then.
“Harada was just touching on something that you all have a lot of interest in recently: the people who are plugging,” said Michael Murray while translating for Harada during the Tekken Talk stream. “There’s no perfect solution to this, but we’re trying to improve it at least to make it a more accurate disconnect ratio that’s displayed on their character profiles.”
“Also, obviously we want to ban these people from the game, but there’s a lot of legal protections in various countries in different manners around the world, so we’re just being very careful that we have all of that kind of paperwork and the methodology that’s necessary to remove these people from the game service before we go through with the bans,” continued Murray. “It will happen. Please be patient.”
Back then, Bandai Namco issued a very stern warning to those that could be ruining the online experience for others. Those that did not stop could be banned from Tekken 8 for life, essentially saying that there was still a chance for problematic players to change their ways.
Earlier tonight, Harada went into detail as to why they’re taking so many precautions before giving these sort of players the boot from Tekken 8’s online servers. It turns out that Bandai Namco has been sued for banning players before, believe it or not.
“Unbelievably, in our experience, in every game, there are always players who will file a lawsuit if you report a ban,” stated Harada over Twitter. “In preparation for this, we have all kinds of evidence preserved and ready to be submitted.”
In other words, Bandai Namco has to collect enough evidence to indicate a violation of their online terms before actually going through with banning players. It’s mentioned that this was especially problematic for Tekken 7 as it did not have the data collection tools that Tekken 8 now has.
Harada notes that reporting cheaters and plug pullers over Twitter, in addition to reporting them via Tekken 8’s report player menu, is especially helpful as it gives them evidence to potentially use in court.
“And not only the in-game data, but also the accusations made via Twitter will reinforce this evidence,” continued Harada. “So, please understand that this is a supplementary system (but very helpful for us to be prepared for lawsuits) and not the main reporting system.”
“We have a mechanism in place for reporting from within the game, and we have mechanisms in place to preserve evidence in the game system, but objective reporting and reporting through external tools (such as Twitter) are very reassuring to us in times of need,” said Harada.
These are just cheats and we will ban them. https://t.co/X8NAz8tbP6
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 13, 2024
We will ban them after preserving evidence of Chater’s replay data.
When you use the hashtag #T8_report, please include the player’s name and region information so that we can ban them smoothly. https://t.co/EPeN7pQ3uT— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 13, 2024
This is not a custom skin or anything like that, just a cheat. We will ban it for violating the Eura rules, after preserving the evidence, and after setting up the conditions under which we can win the lawsuit, if there is one. https://t.co/4ULBdjmRWD
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 13, 2024
You misunderstand, but we have a reporting function in the game (if you have played against someone once, you can report it from the community menu).
Basically, this reporting function is sufficient (Of course you can use it too, just use the in-game reporting system instead of… https://t.co/11QggVziHN— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 13, 2024
Incredibly, we have experienced such lawsuits in several of our titles (and while user agreements are universal, the response to lawsuits varies from country to country, making it tricky).
We have a mechanism in place for reporting from within the game, and we have mechanisms in… https://t.co/S87APQcxlE— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 13, 2024
You’re the type of person that when I say, “I like apples,” you say, “Then you don’t like grapes damn!”
I have already declared that I will ban plugger (see past tweets).
Thank you.
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 13, 2024
In T7, the system did not allow us to recover data that could prove the macro; in T8, I explained, it does.
We have to have a whole set of data that we can prove in the event of a lawsuit.If he is using macros, the evidence will accumulate and ban if it can be proven. the…
— Katsuhiro Harada (@Harada_TEKKEN) March 13, 2024