WTF Activision/Blizzard!? These bans are completely useless and only hurting the actual players. There are a million examples of this. Ive been banned twice over the past few weeks for switching chars and games too quick while transferring items. I lost a ton of gear both times. There are a million of bots in the game so what you are doing clearly isnt working and it just keeps screwing over the fans. You guys already have a huge image/fan problem and crap like this is why. FIX IT and actually care about the games and players. You greedy A holes…
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Here are some common reasons that people get restricted from Battle.net play. Keep in mind Blizzard will not remove the restrictions for any reason. The restrictions are automatic and are in place to maintain server stability.
Short term restrictions
These restrictions can last up to 72 hours.
Maximum created game limits:
- Creating more than 20 games in a 1 hour period.
- Creating more than 100 games in a 12 hour period.
Other:
- Creating a game too quickly after leaving the last one. Wait at least 5 seconds before creating a new game.
- Switching accounts and/or characters too quickly. Wait a few seconds between each screen when switching accounts and characters.
Long term restrictions
These restrictions last two weeks from the last time trying to connect to closed Battle.net with any of the following being true.
- Trying to connect while you have a VPN active. Based on the public IP at the time of trying to connect.
-
Trying to connect while connected through a business-class connection.
e.g. At work, hotel/motel, coffee shop or any public wifi connection. Based on the Blizzard account the game keys are bound to.
Here is an official list of reasons for Battle.net restrictions from Blizzard:
https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/264916
Note: I understand the frustration, but calling them names isn’t going to do you any good I’m afraid.
same thing happened here man
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No address to unreasonableness or bot issue, just some corporate copy paste BS?
at least you can still play the game. temporary bans in other games makes you unable to play them.
“In place to maintain server stability” yeah right… in a game that’s ancient by now.
Like many others i’ve come back to re-experience Diablo 2 before remaster and Diablo 4. But now i found myself banned for weeks, because i forgot VPN was active together with my anti-virus, or simply because i was on a public network?? I don’t even know, because the GM that answered my ticket couldn’t tell me: " While we cannot give you the exact reason behind this, connection restrictions in Diablo II can be applied for behaviours such as:"
Look, i get that it’s important to reduce the amount of unethical use, exploiting, hacking, botting and so forth. But still not fixing a problem that is unjustly (Tyrael would be proud) banning passionate fans of the game, whom just installed the game again and started playing again, THAT is a major turn-off… HOW can a VPN or accidently playing on a public network result in 14 days ban and not just be short team restriction like 24 hours or something? The game is 20 years old, the bots have always been there and always will, you lost that fight. 2 weeks seems far to excessive for some “server stability management”. As you write yourself:
“Restrictions lasting longer than 72 hours, usually indicates that you were witnessed by a Battle.net representative doing something against the Terms of Use Agreement, which warranted a lengthy restriction. These restrictions will be for connecting to the realm at all.”
There has been no-one witnessing me doing anything against the terms of use agreement - but i am getting a 14 days ban just the same AS IF I HAD ACTUALLY CHEATED. Let me and other unfortunate souls play the game for christ sake.
A bit of background on why VPNs are restricted:
VPN usage was restricted from Diablo 2 Battle.net play due to advertisement spam bots in game and in the public chat/trade channels. The problem was getting so bad towards the end that if you tried joining a public game with player slots opened, spambots would pop in, regurgitate a wall of spam on the screen and leave in 1/4 of a second. If multiple player slots were open, they’d be popping in and out so fast that your screen was a wall of rolling text. Plus if you didn’t restrict your messages to friends only, you’d get spammed with whisper messages even after they left.
They tried IP restrictions, which worked at the start. Then the bots quickly caught on and started using VPNs to dodge the IP restrictions, so the IP restrictions didn’t work anymore. They tried permanently squelching cd keys from being able to chat which had a minor impact, but eventually the bots would just get new keys. (This also resulted in a large number of people getting their 16 digit keys chat squelched because they were brute-force guessed by the spam bot ring leaders.) Blizzard was backed into a corner on this one, so they had no choice but to hammer anyone they could detect with a VPN connection with a two week restriction. The solution worked well, the chat spam bots were no more.
As far as business class internet connection restrictions, those are in place to keep both botting and spamming down.
If they simply lift these restrictions, the flood gates will be open again, spam will dominate your screen in public games and bots will make it impossible for any legitimate player to enjoy the game, because the server connections would be constantly maxed out with bots. Blizzard can’t indefinitely keep upgrading their server capacity just to accommodate the bots + more server capacity for legitimate players.
I understand the frustration. I have no intentions on making anyone mad, I’m simply stating the facts and providing the information needed to avoid the restrictions in the future.
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I can see why it is, as it is. But after all these years, and with so many players coming back and experiencing this. I personally think it’s time to try and do something else. I am not saying to lift all the restrictions and let spam-bots dominate. But some alterations must be made! This site is flooded with unhappy players, and it’s simply just not enough to write an article on “how to avoid it next time, AFTER you’ve been banned”. As i am reading through all this, it seems like the GM’s aren’t willing to change anything, and they are not even capable of telling you what the problem is. Having such a big portion of the legit playerbase or returning playerbase banned calls for some kind of action, either lift some restrictions or try to alter them. Because right now they are running away from this, and prematurely closing support tickets etc. So they don’t have to deal with it… Something needs to happen
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you do have a point. they should add a warning in the next patch at the very least.
It is not that the GMs are unwilling. They are unable. The software is hard coded and the GMs have no tools to over ride that. The anti-cheat team made that call, not the CS team. They close the tickets because there is literally nothing they can do. The support article states that clearly too. CS can not remove the bans.
They are not going to be changing the D2 server client to remove those restrictions either - for good reasons.
I do agree that a warning for new or returning players would be good so that they know to turn off the VPN. Given they are not changing the server client, a warning on the download page that links to the public facing Support article would let players know of the restrictions before they get a temp ban. That feedback has been passed on to the Diablo team and the CS team.
so wait a sec… Currently on a long ban of about 5 days now. Of course i check a couple times a day, so does that mean my sentence hasnt been started yer?