Yesterday, Riot Games’ new tactical shooter, Valorant, emerged from its post-beta slumber and into full release. This meant a fresh start for most players, who saw their ranks reset and an influx of new names to attach to (and, in the midst of battle, detach from) faces. Cheaters, however, were not so lucky.
Players who used cheats during Valorant’s closed beta assumed that they, too, would have their records wiped clean. Even now, however, many of their accounts either remain banned or got re-banned after a few rounds of play. As spotted by Twitter account the Anti-Cheat Police Department, cheaters took to popular cheat forums and Discords to complain.
— Anti-Cheat Police Department ????️ (@AntiCheatPD) June 2, 2020
“Still banned by HWID [hardware identification],” said one.
“FFS, I just got banned 10 rounds in. Created the account this morning,” said another.
“Used free cheats not even long and still banned,” said another. “Man, this sucks.”
During closed beta, Riot banned over 10,000 Valorant cheaters in total. Last month, Riot anti-cheat developer Matt Paoletti said on Twitter that there would be some leniency for “most” players who received hardware bans, but that they’d have to create new accounts no matter what. Most, however, does not mean all, and enough remain banned that they’ve taken to reaching out to Riot employees in a desperate attempt to find out what’s up.
“Hey man I was just wondering, I was one of the players that used a free cheat and I was really [excited] to hear that we would be given a second chance to learn our lesson, and I have. I just have tried to play today with a new account and got removed with ‘you have been banned from Valorant.’ Anyway, this is a mistake or you guys just didn’t lift bans?” one banned player wrote to Riot CEO Nicolo Laurent in a Twitter DM.
“Sorry, no second chance for cheaters,” he replied.
In response to this exchange, Paoletti clarified what’s going on.
“Those who tested the tools a couple of times have been spared like [fellow anti-cheat developer Phillip Koskinas] and I have said, but continual abusers of free cheats and users of pay-to-cheats have remained HWID’d for an indefinite period,” Paoletti wrote on Twitter.
It’s a rough day for pathological cheaters, who, contrary to their own beliefs and nobody else’s, do not deserve better. Now if only Riot would go after the racists with similar fervour.
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