Respawn shuts down "dashboarding" cheaters on Apex Legends
Most of which were playing on PS4.
Most of the 2000+ accounts recently banned from playing Apex Legends for "dashboarding" or exploiting matchmaking in Ranked mode had been playing on PS4.
The statistic came courtesy of Conor Ford, who manages Apex security at developer Respawn. They confirmed that of the 2086 players banned on 29th July 2021, 1965 had been playing on PS4, 62 on Xbox, 44 on PC, and 15 on Nintendo Switch.
The ban hammer primarily targeted players caught "dashboarding", players who forcefully shut down the game at the end of a losing match to avoid losing RP. By abusing it, players can erroneously maintain their high-rank status but thankfully, Respawn noticed the trend.
Ford didn't specify the second exploit - presumably to keep it quiet - but said the bans also targeted those who were abusing a "matchmaking exploit" that enabled high-ranked players to enter low-level Bronze lobbies and take on less-experienced players to farm points.
"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," explained Ford (thanks, PSU).
"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."
ICYMI, Caustic and Fuse will get buffed when upcoming season Emergence drops. As Emma explained at the time, Caustic's gas will no longer deal a flat five ticks of damage per second. Instead, it will increase in damage every other second: for instance, causing 5,5,6,6,7,7 points of damage, with no limit on how much it can increase. Balancing this out, however, the gas cloud created by Caustic's Nox Gas Grenade will disappear five seconds sooner.
Fuse, on the other hand, will see his Knuckle Cluster last twice as long, and his Motherlode ability will highlight any enemy caught in the blast, even if they are hidden behind a building or wall.