Arena of Valor (AoV) - Action Continues against Arena of Valor Hackers

An additional wave of bans hit the Arena of Valor Americas and Europe servers over the weekend, continuing a trend of both Tencent and Garena cracking down on those using third-party software to cheat.

Hacking Bans Continue

A representative of Tencent announced over the weekend on the Arena of Valor subreddit that 127 more accounts across NA and EU servers have been banned due to the use of exploitative programs. Just what are these programs? Tencent staff member Nick Zazzer describes it as follows:

After analyzing these programs ourselves, the abilities these map hacks provide are a serious threat to fair, competitive game play. They offer four main advantages:

1. Vision of enemy team on the minimap at all times
2. The ability to see enemies anywhere on the map, even if teammates do not have vision
3. Vision of enemies hiding in the bush
4. Monster vision

While in game, players are limited in vision to areas that an allied unit can see. When approaching enemies, it is important to be able to move undetected around the battlefield to both avoid being picked off by enemy heroes and to be able to launch surprise attacks on one’s enemies. Having full knowledge of the field at all times is thereby a huge advantage and will dramatically slant the game into the exploit user’s favor. Given the mobile platform, many had thought that the game would be much more difficult to disrupt with hacks. As a result, the revelation of these hacks came as a shock to many players.

Affected Accounts

Tencent provided a censored list of the banned accounts’ IDs. This was to allow affected players to confirm that their suspension was due to this recent string of bannings. Several numbers of the accounts’ IDs have been censored to avoid direct harassment from other Arena of Valor players.

Previous Bannings

Last week a similar announcement was made regarding 36 accounts which had been banned. As part of the new announcement, the Tencent representative claimed that these had been “100% verified” despite a number of public complaints of wrongful bans. However, they stated with regards to the newest wave of suspended accounts that “all bans are subject to further private discussion,”
so players who believe they have been wrongfully affected can still contact the team at Tencent.

On the other side of the globe, Garena has been dealing with hackers as well. 27 players were suspended from the game for 48 years including a number of high ranked and professional players.

MVP

A lot of attention was brought to the recent ban waves due to the banning of high profile player MVP. MVP came forward on the Arena of Valor subreddit to talk about being banned from the game for map hacks. He claimed that he was regularly bullied by high-level player Ass_Dave and others at Ass_Dave’s encouragement. This led to regular reports by a number of players until eventually MVP was panned from the game for “hacking/exploiting/unsportsmanlike behavior.”

While no evidence has been seen to either confirm or deny MVP’s claims, the post generated a significant amount of concern over how Tencent handled the banning of players. Tencent has since come forward as saying that they have never let outside forces influence whether or not they ban any particular player.

Future Enforcement

The staff at Tencent have reassured players that they will continue to crack down on illicit activity that disrupts the integrity of the game. Players who feel that they have encountered hackers are encouraged to contact Tencent at support@arenaofvalor.com to report the incident. It is important to remember that reports require a screenshot or video of the incident be sent as well. Players will not receive an update on the report personally, however, the staff reassures that they follow up on each report using their own tools to verify. Players hoping to hold on to their accounts should avoid using any third-party software in order to gain an unfair advantage in the game.

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