Hardly anyone believed it would happen, but it has. A massive ban wave including rollbacks hit a lot of players of The Division 2 and the reactions are intense. Check here to see how the community reacted.
What’s going on? The Division 2 saw a great influx with the big expansion “Warlords of New York” and many players returned to Ubisoft’s loot shooter. However, several agents were frustrated due to many small and big bugs and used DPS glitches or the zombie boss glitch to gain an advantage.
This, in turn, frustrated the honest players who demanded in the last difficult weeks full of maintenance and patches that the developers should act against cheaters.
And that’s what Massive did too. Yesterday, on March 31st, the first major ban wave in The Division 2 took place and cheaters received two harsh penalties:
- One week account suspension
- Players rolled back to March 17th
Additionally, the accounts of the respective players are “flagged”, meaning marked. If there are further violations, there is a possibility that these accounts could even be permanently banned.
Massive takes a hard stance and receives a lot of support – and criticism
How are the agents reacting? The harsh crackdown is dividing the community. While the comments here on MeinMMO are mostly positive about the consequences for the cheaters, many of the banned players on Reddit and Twitter are up in arms. There has never been such an intense discussion in Division 2 before.
What do the supporters say? Most agents who support the bans and rollbacks thank Massive and are very pleased with the consequences for the cheaters.
One of our most diligent commentators here at Division 2, “BavEagle”, states: “Wow, thanks @Massive. I honestly didn’t expect such an action and it should be a model for all other games.” He then adds that the bans could have been a bit longer. Some even demand permanent account bans or at least a month-long suspension.
The rollback, meaning the reset of the accounts to March 17th, is received better. Even “Cukky” states under our article: “I think one week is not enough. But I somehow celebrate the rollback to March 17th.” He represents the opinion of most supporters, who would have liked a longer penalty, but particularly consider the two-week rollback as a right measure.
What about the opponents? This camp is divided into three groups, with most being quite upset about the measures:
- Glitchers who were banned
- Agents who played with glitchers
- Glitchers who were not banned
While there are also a few insightful agents who accept their penalties with composure and even show a bit of remorse, the majority of players who were affected are up in arms, and all channels are filled with extensive tirades about the incompetence of the developers:
As the user @Baumgardner44 on Twitter states: “Uninstalling… I will never play a Massive or Ubisoft game again. The fault lies with you and only you, Massive. I hope other people never play your games again either.”.
The four largest threads on Reddit have already gathered almost 4,500 mostly very agitated comments. If you want to check out the threads in peace, you’ll find them below in the sources.
Apparently, the bans also hit many players who unknowingly played with cheaters. This has led to the most frustration, as these agents now feel unjustly punished:
I tried to log in this morning, and my account was banned, even though I thought I had never used the DPS glitch. However, I was matched a few times while grinding in the “Air & Space” museum with groups of players who consistently dealt 1.800 million something damage, while everyone else was around 300 million something. At that time, I couldn’t figure out how someone could deal so much damage with a pistol and a shield.
Now I know that was probably the DPS glitch. Now I got banned because I was matched with a group that exploited the bug? Banned for something I had no control over? Yeah, I’m done with Massive games for good. I’ve requested a full refund for the game.
mystikx on Reddit (translated)
Especially frustrating for these agents are the comments from cheaters who apparently have not been banned.
Update April 2nd, 9:00 AM: In the SotG stream on April 1st, the developers stated that the bans and rollbacks were looked into on the individual accounts. According to Massive, only players who actually exploited the glitch were banned.
What can I do if I was banned unjustly? On the Ubisoft support website, you can open a ticket and contact support. It’s best to try it with a live chat. However, the support also emphasizes that they have no means to lift the temporary bans. So be prepared for a longer back and forth.
Was that the right move by Massive? The developers announced the measures a few weeks ago:
The glitchers were warned. For many readers on MeinMMO, these were exactly the right steps, and they see the harsh penalties as justified. However, if it turns out in the coming days that many players were unfairly banned, Massive may still face problems.
The topic remains exciting for now, as does the further development of Division 2. Two major updates are coming in April, with which Massive continues to tweak the loot shooter and hopefully the DPS glitches will soon be a thing of the past.
