From Software is cracking down on cheaters in Dark Souls 3, but as with previous Dark Souls games, it appears to be impacting innocent bystanders.
“Tons of LEGITIMATE PC PLAYERS have now been banned,” is the title of a panicked thread on the Dark Souls 3 subreddit, and there’s plenty of discussions on Steam, too.
This is the error that’s been popping up for some folks:
Players fear they have been permanently softbanned from Dark Souls 3.
If you’re softbanned, you can still play the game online, but you’ll only connect with other people who have been softbanned. Thus, you could potentially be playing with a room full of cheaters at all times. Not great.
In theory, players are softbanned from Dark Souls because they’re cheating, whether it’s making their character invulnerable, giving them access to overpowered weapons and so on. But in the past, From Software has softbanned people for using mods or getting tricked by a cheater.
In scenario one, a player might be using a mod to address an issue that From Software has ignored, as has been the case with previous games. In Dark Souls 2, for example, it took years for the developer to address a durability glitch with weapons and it was possible for players to create characters with invalid names that would immediately crash your game. Before From Software solved these issues, there was a mod for it.
In scenario two, a cheater might offer you a weapon on the ground, but if you pick it up, the game will realise it’s a hacked weapon and softban you.
Dark Souls 3 is the best PC version of a Dark Souls game yet, and so players haven’t been driven to use these kinds of mods. Right now, the threads are devoted to rooting out what might be triggering softbans for players. Is it external software to make it easier to connect a Dual Shock 4? Does it have to do with connecting streaming software? What if you play offline, make progress and then come back online? What if your Xbox 360 controller disconnects? So far, people haven’t been able to nail it down.
The game’s publisher, Bandai Namco, has acknowledged something is up.
RE: Dark Souls III Server bans – I’m gathering all the information that I can to clarify – Will be sharing tomorrow.
— J. Kartje (@JKartje) April 21, 2016
Yes FromSoftware has sent warnings and is currently investigating flagged accounts.
— J. Kartje (@JKartje) April 21, 2016
“It’s frustrating,” said one user. “The people who would cheat would also lie about cheating so there’s never a sure way to know if someone is having legitimate problems or is reaping the results of their actions.”
“Played for nearly 20 hours no issues,” said another. “Two characters, one pretty far into the game and the other just starting out, and all of a sudden I’m getting this error out of nowhere after the recent update with the next patch’s info and I don’t know why. I deleted the characters, re-installed and restarted, nothing. It’s still there. Help? I don’t want to get banned for no reason.”
It’s possible that everyone who’s been softbanned is a dirty cheater who won’t fess up to downloading external software to mess with their game. Given my past reporting on the Souls games, though, I’m inclined to believe From Software may have spread the ban hammer too wide again.
Comments
24 responses to “Dark Souls 3 PC Players Don’t Know Why They’re Getting Banned”
Somewhat related – the netcode for Dark Souls III PC seems really shoddy (I’ve heard the console versions are a lot better though). I’ve previously had no problems on the past games, but I’m getting weird issues like no sound effects when my weapon connects, but then seeing the enemy take damage a few seconds later, while I’m seemingly keeping a good distance from the enemy and taking damage. Pretty much ruined PVP for me 🙁
Your not wrong. There has been a couple times where I have jumped in to help some folks with co op and the boss aggroes me but was not attacking, I thought it was lag but then never actually got attacked. I wonder if this has anything to do with soft bans with people cheesing boss fights?
That was my experience with DS1 on PC, and yeah, it really ruined any prospect of PvP for me.
I’m getting a really serious case of phantoms not being able to follow me through fog walls. The most prolific ones were Dancer of Boreal Valley and Dragonslayer Armour.
Console versions are having a lot of the same problems really from what I’ve seen.
I’m playing primarily on PC though and so far in most cases it is really quite good… About as good as DS PVP has ever been, really. There are always cases where someone’s connection is simply having a down moment and it makes things hard, but that happens with every game.
That’s not to say it’s perfect. From’s net code absolutely has it’s own moments of not connecting players ‘properly’ so they’re out of sync, floating around, etc… But I honestly haven’t seen anywhere near as much of that as I did on the first day or so of launch.
I’m actually really enjoying PVP this time around.
So… want to swap? 🙂
Went for the PS4 version for these reasons.
Guess what? Ps4 has. The. Same. Issue. Softban for no reason here and there is not even a ban message.
Yup. Happened to me. Wonder if we can contact the accc and get a refund if they don’t undo the ban
If innocent players are getting banned then they will most likely just pirate the next in the series due to not wanting to risk the same thing happen.
The thing is, no one knows if the people affected are really innocent. For sure they know what they did just no one is confessing.
I can agree with you for sure. I have been banned from games for using exploits which it didn’t bother me as i knew it was wrong.
But in other games i have been banned or my account wiped due to false claims against me because you have more money then others. (I normally own 2 accounts for MMO’s as well as all i do is grind for money once i hit max level).
If i try to get un-banned and are not successful i just start pirating their games from then on out as being unfairly banned is just wrong.
It’s not impossible that there are a few outliers in this case, but I find it quite unlikely that everyone claiming to be innocent actually is.
A LOT more people would be getting banned if it wasn’t targeting specific things and just blindly hammering people at random.
Your very wtong anyone that got invaded by a modder got soft banned i dont wven like to mod never have and i lost my lvl 80
That doesn’t make me wrong at all.
I never said some innocent people weren’t getting banned as a result… I said it is unlikely that everyone claiming to be innocent in this actually is.
Because there are pretty much always a number of people during situations like this that actually were doing something they shouldn’t have been, got banned for it, and proceeded to jump on the “I’m innocent like all these others!” bandwagon to get themselves clear.
they will pirate? lel you cant pirate online version only in offline mode
There’s also an issue with people not summoning my mound making character! On PS4, please just trussssst me *licks corner of mouth*
I got banned in DS2, because a player invaded me, dropped a binocular +10…. I saw rare summon signs and got invaded by cheaters the entire game. What a horrible policy of From Software
I ve been playing for over 100 hours and have been just summoned 3 times as a wolf (ofc i went to the places a have to be for that – and i tried with my lvl 100 +10 but as well with my 35+3)
when i invade as a red phantom its usualy 2on1 or 3/4 on 1 and since im not so good at this game i ll mostly just die
well 1 out of 4 or 5 times i invade or go for a duel the other player has no animations and just slides on the ground … never won vs these ppl since i cant see what they are doing and how to react to it