Battlefield 3 bans bring the pain to cheaters

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 14 November, 2011

Hackers beware.

EA has banned hundreds of Battlefield 3 cheaters across all platforms.

And it has issued a stark warning to hackers: more bans are coming.

"This week we've banned hundreds of offending accounts and have stats-wiped accounts for exploiting (such as boosting)," said a Tweet on the Battlefield Twitter page.

Then, "We are working on banning as many people as we can as quickly as we can. We have a zero tolerance policy for cheating."

One exploit cheaters are currently enjoying is a glitch that enables them to rank up tens of thousands of points in a single game as an engineer.

A patch is expected soon. In a series of Tweets EA said squads and communications are a "top priority" and will be "taken care of".

Developer DICE has already discussed the features it may tweak in the patch.

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (39) Latest comment 6 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Jacksie66 #1 6 months ago

    Smashing stuff.
    Cheating fuckshites...

  • Whitster #2 6 months ago

    Really though, should people be getting punished for an exploit your QA team missed?

  • RageRiot #3 6 months ago

    Hardly 'hacking' if the game lets you do it? Ban seems a bit excessive to me, seeing as it's their own fault.

  • Lunatic4ever #4 6 months ago

    if its a glitch, I dont know why they ban players...release a patch and solve the problem.

    as for the other cheating assholes...to hell with them!

  • marmaduke #5 6 months ago

    Ugh. Banning people who have actually hacked their way to the top, or are using an aimbot: fine. Banning people who may have just been told by their mate that it was a good way to get some XP: not fine.

    It doesn't sound like these people are ruining anyone else's enjoyment of the game by doing this
    Edited by marmaduke at 14/11/11 @ 09:15

  • mega-robbie #6 6 months ago

    Nice!!!!!!Thank you dice make them all go to cod

  • natureboy #7 6 months ago

    very overrated game

  • tangoownage #8 6 months ago

    I welcome this news

  • TelexStar #9 6 months ago

    Thanks EA/DICE for further justifying me trading in this dog shit of a game.

  • billy-beauts #10 6 months ago

    If this is the exploit where one guy on your team shoots at a bot while you repair it, thus giving you tonnes of points. Then it seems a bit harsh to ban them for it. It's not something I would do, but if you are going to allow points to be given for doing it, you can't exactly blame some for exploiting it.

  • DrStrangelove #11 6 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:51:23 12-12-2011

  • DrStrangelove #12 6 months ago

    I should have actually read the sentence, and you guys should have too. They didn't ban for exploiting, they reset their stats. Which is fair imo.

  • JahB #13 6 months ago

    @Whitster
    Yes they should. Just because the qa team missed it doesn't mean you get to exploit it with impunity. I'm all for banning players that ruin multiplayer for others.

  • OxWearingSocks #14 6 months ago

    Fair play keeping it a level playing field. But I'd prefer the patch to sort out the crash issues when changing map or starting a new game...

    Or implement battlelog (which I am a fan of) into the client so I don't need a browser running to play?

  • agentsmith007 #15 6 months ago

    good, ban them for life, now the cheaters will realise they are crap at these games and thats why they have to cheat.

  • mukki #16 6 months ago

    if this includes people that used the remote bot to boost XP than that is a tad too harsh...
    plus I would not consider the above a hack and more like a bug in the game...
    but whatever.. I am still enjoying BF3

  • rojjer #17 6 months ago

    Bans are for cheats, Stats wipes are for the stat padders, regardless of whether it was using a glitch or not. They knew they were doing wrong and knew that a stats wipe was on the cards. Glad its happening tbh

  • jeeweej #18 6 months ago

    *Weapon unlocked: BANHAMMER*

    Nice to see DICE/EA banning those cheaters.. Havent really noticed cheaters ingame though, but maybe i'm just lucky. (or blind ;))

  • Adamical #19 6 months ago

    I really miss BF3; Skyrim won't let me play anything else right now.

  • DwarfyP #20 6 months ago

    @RageRiot @Whister
    I'm sure you'd be the first guys to complain if they weren't being dealt with and sat at the top of leaderboards.

    @marmaduke
    A bunch of players sat in a corner exploiting a flaw means those players aren't playing for the objective. That means they ARE affecting other players.
    Edited by DwarfyP at 14/11/11 @ 09:39

  • DirectAim #21 6 months ago

    @marmaduke you cant say one form of cheating is fine and another isn't, thats just fucking stupid.

    They are ruining the enjoyment of everyone.

    1) They jump to the top of the leaderboards within a few minutes. Thats not fair for the people who dont cheat.
    2) They get ALL the unlocks giving them a really big advantage over everyone else who dont cheat.
    3) Developers have to now spend time locating and banning cheaters when they could be using that time to improve the game.

    Thats just a couple.

    Also how the fuck do you expect EA/Dice to figure out who cheats and who just got told by there friend it was a good way to get XP and really shouldn't be banned because hey they might be upset they got caught cheating.

    marmaduke you're a fucking tool!

  • DirectAim #22 6 months ago

    @EddieMink same for me, im just gutted I got the hardened edition of COD:MW3, biggest waste of £90 this year!

  • kinky_mong #23 6 months ago

    Noticed yesterday that one person on the opposing team was completely invincible, and I doubt he cheated because he seemed just as perplexed as to why he was filled with bullets and not dying, so he stopped killing people and didn't arm the M-Com he was stood by.

    Good to see some people are at least honest when they inadvertently stumble across a bug. Obviously not good that the bug exists in the first place.

  • zegerman1942 #24 6 months ago

    @Whitster a game that size, with so many components working together and so many gameplay elements, there will always be things slipping through. I would never ever blame QA on projects like this :)

  • Rubbish_Russ #25 6 months ago

    That happened to me too - I suddenly realised I wasn't getting killed but by that point the game was pretty much over. And there was me thinking I had finally cracked this FPS stuff.

    Weird bug - no idea why it happened either.

  • jrb #26 6 months ago

    stat wipe != ban.
    Please read the article peoples.

  • Po1ymorph #27 6 months ago

    And it has issued a stark warning to hackers: more bans are coming.
    "This week we've banned hundreds of offending accounts and have stats-wiped accounts for exploiting (such as boosting)

    A hack results in a ban.

    Exploiting results in stat's being wiped.

    No one is being banned for exploiting a glitch.

    Nice one EA, have no mercy!

    Now if you could sort out the activating of Battlelog on consoles that would be super. Because as it stands you have just failed, massively.

  • barkertron #28 6 months ago

    I've been playing the game a fair bit and occasionally come across people who have levelled up so ridiculously far that they are either cheating or have been playing 20 hours a day since release. Either way, a ban would probably do them a world of good.

  • PaulieWaulie #29 6 months ago

    Post deleted at 14:23:40 06-01-2012

  • Stevonymo #30 6 months ago

    You've spent your money on this game...Why cheat? Why not play normally, enjoy every second of it and you will get there in the end and the journey will have been great? Just don't get what the almighty rush it!

  • chessboxer #31 6 months ago

    On the PS3 leaderboard there are loads of people in the top 200 who are scoring between 2000 and 4900 points per minute. The other day I noticed someone had scored over 5 Million points with 25hrs playtime.

  • Porko_Rossi #32 6 months ago

    It's not just the robot repair boosting, squad rush matches are full of people standing around taking turns to kill each other and revive not even playing the game.

  • mattk84 #33 6 months ago

    Great news. Let the legit players rule the leaderboards.
    BHL clan feature quite strongly on the 360 leaderboard. They even have a website showing how they do it. Ban em all !!!!

    I'm never going to trouble the top of the leaderboard but I actually feel sorry for these guys who do nothing but boost to stay at the top. Whats the point and wheres the fun?

  • Liquidoodle #34 6 months ago

    Hoorah! Awesome news, if you're ok with boosting and bringing the game down for the rest of the players then you are also ok with having your stats wiped you little cheating scum bag!

    So far the only way of getting rid has been shooting the EOD bot to death then either shooting them until they rage quit or letting them shoot you more than 4 times so they get kicked from the game :p I prefer letting them team kill their way out of the server, removes some of their points :p

    Hehe I still can't believe some of you actually bought COD btw what were you expecting? ;)

  • Bibbo #35 6 months ago

    Well, having a look at the 360 leaderboards, the boosters are all still on there. Unless they've been banned and not wiped from the leaderboards. Just have to look at their KDR and SPM to see them.

  • antblu87 #36 6 months ago

    @Adamical we are in the same boat my friend.
    Blessings of akitosh upon you.

  • waffle #37 6 months ago

    I've been enjoying BF3 a great deal. I am, however, pleased that exploiters are getting their statistics reset and doubly pleased that hacks/cheats are getting outright banned.

  • KayTannee #38 6 months ago

    @kinky_mong I got made immortal today after getting revived. Issue was couldn't actually do anything, screen stayed blured and had to just stand in place til game finished.

    Looking forward to new patch, I swear almost every session of playing come accross the bug where my mouse buggers off, or stops accepting clicks in the menus. Which makes it a sod to respawn properly.

  • Cardiff1 #39 6 months ago

    I've only stumbled upon glitches that don't benefit me. More than once I've spawned with no weapons whatsoever, much to the obvious amusement of the enemy lucky enough to find me. ( PS3 ).