https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/falsely-banned-accounts/816797
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Hunter: Do share that screenshot, you can upload it to any file-sharing website like Imgur or Reddit and then pasting a link to it in a comment either in here or on playboi’s new thread, or both. Just make sure to add spaces in the middle so it doesn’t get recognized. Any evidence of Blizzard wrongfully silencing a massive thread like this one should absolutely be shared and preserved.
playboi: Thanks for creating a new thread, given the sheer number of people who have had their accounts falsely banned, I’m sure it will eventually reach it’s old size with consistent interaction. I’ve included it to the top of the subcategory: False Suspension And Ban.
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Here are the two screenshots I took before it was deleted, unfortunately from mobile it doesn’t show the thread title but it’s that one.
Highlighted is the name of the forum moderator who hid the thread
postimg(.)cc/PPR0cjXS
In this one you can see the latest reply of that thread which was of user “playboi”:
postimg(.)cc/Z01rDskr
Hope these links work.
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For future reference, I’ve documented the false permanent ban situation below.
False bans are absolutely an issue that has and continues to affect thousands of players. There are several ways this happens, such as with the now fixed applying update bug, but the most common way this happens is through the Defense Matrix system, especially back in May when it was most aggressive. In fact, there was a megathread created by player Duu008 on April 16th that had over five thousand views and almost five hundred comments documenting players who had been falsely and permanently banned due to the overactive Defense Matrix system, which was an issue a developer outright acknowledged and promised to fix. Link here:
https://twitter.com/SrslyPaladin/status/1648482888038633473
While, that thread was deleted on May 10th by the forum moderator Toraldon, there are partial backups of the first megathread, which you can view on the WayBackMachine. Links here:
(https://web.archive.org/web/*/https:/us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/falsely-banned-accounts/807864*
You can see the aftermath of that thread’s deletion here:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/the-competitive-bugs-megathread/696580/365
It appears the forum moderators don’t enjoy it when player discussion starts turning to legal action against Blizzard. After this first megathread was deleted, a second megathread was created the day after, but that too was quickly deleted. Since then, players have continued to create forum posts about their permanently banned accounts, but many are deleted.
And while the over aggression of the Defense Matrix system was eventually fixed, the switch from manual review to automated review means that any player can be falsely and permanently banned if they are targeted by mass reporting. There are too many cases to count, but you can find them just by scrolling the bug forums, such as this recent one.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/account-banned-with-false-acusation/863223
You can find additional threads in the competitive bugs megathread under the subcategory: False Suspension And Ban. Link here:
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/overwatch/t/the-competitive-bugs-megathread/696580
As for how these bans can be overturned, there are only two known methods. The first is through directly messaging a developer on Twitter. While it is possible for developers to respond to these messages, it is extremely unlikely. The second method is by appealing the ban through customer support. However, reporting issues too frequently or issues they cannot solve does run the risk of being threatened with account silences and deletions. I can personally attest to that, and you can read more about that in the competitive bugs megathread under the subcategory: Bug Forum Monitoring Updates.
I cannot help feeling frustrated towards this whole situation. It is absolutely true and evident that false bans do occur, and it is a disgrace that the forum moderators continually silence players who speak out about their issues in the one place where their voices are meant to be heard. What’s more infuriating is how players can be unsympathetic or dismissive towards the issues of other players when we should all be helping each other to have our issues acknowledged and resolved. If you want to contribute, please do create your own bug posts sharing details about your issues and reach out to others on other platforms such as Twitter or Reddit. Links here:
https://twitter.com/necros_ow/status/1731127738101121466https://www.reddit.com/r/Overwatch/comments/180whl8/defense_matrix_abuse_by_spectating_trolls_any/
If you want to read more about this false permanent account ban situation, please do check out the competitive bugs megathread, which archives and documents almost every competitive bug since the launch of Overwatch 2. I hope this was helpful and informative.
Please help in spreading the word about this megathread and other related threads regarding these issues.
Competitive Bugs Megathread link here:
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Oh bumpin in here. I would love to have my 1000 hours back on my career profile, (im on console) equivalent of 2 years of playing for me. Wiped. With no accountability, updates, or mentions of this soul diminishing bug since October 22nd, yet they keep it in the “list of known bugs”----maybe start with fixing old bugs before fixing new bugs?
Like when you’ve been at a restaurant waiting for your food to be ready, and someone that comes in after you gets their food first. Or like how you use up the rest of the older cereal box before opening up a new one. Yah get me?
7 months Blizzard, please for the love of God help us out here. (I’ve played for 6 years).
Anybody(yes anybody, look at my career profile) can CLEARLY see my career profile is missing hours. I have a [5 star diamond legacy border on my page, and 1900 hours on my career profile.] IT’S IMPOSSIBLE to get 5 star diamond border in 1900 hours. My real hours should be nearly 3k.
Big ol’ bump.
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Hey! Same here in regards to missing hours. I played for a long time on PS4 before I came to PC. During that time it was either S1 S2, I think S2 that I got T5 during like the final end days of the season. Everyone dropped out because no one was playing, so I got in fairly low SR compared to 4k. I think the last time I looked at the tracker sites for competitive play I was 3700 at some point. It didn’t say the exact date so I don’t know what season it was. But when I look back now, the “trackers” are updated and don’t show any of that anymore. I also have an old screencap from 2016 of me taking a screen shot of my rank because I was so excited about it.
Sucks to see this happening to us.
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I just noticed this on my Lifeweaver, specifically for Competitive. The other tabs seems to be fine.
I don’t think this is how statistics work: 8 Games, 4 Wins, 4 Losses, 47% Win Rate?
imgur. com/a/VToXw6V
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they’re closing playboi’s post!
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imgur . com/a/7BIFh8l
I was literally just replying to posts and this happened
EDIT: Error page…again WOW!
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xJBrawls: Over seven months since launch and thousands upon thousands of players affected, and yet there has only been a single acknowledgement of the bug. Still, it’s good to see other players continuing to bring attention to their issues. Also, just a small bit of unsolicited advice, larger threads are much more likely to gain and maintain traction than continuing to create new ones from scratch, so interacting with those threads should, in theory, bring greater continuous attention to your issue. If you would like to bump up those threads as well, I have compiled several very large threads listed under the subcategory Competitive Career Statistics Page such as this one: Career profile stats not updating in overwatch 2.
Ross: I’m assuming when you say T5 you mean Top 500. If so, does that mean you lost your placement on the Top 500 leaderboards after Overwatch 2 launched? Even if that data is not visible within the client itself, in theory, it should be available on Overbuff and other websites. If you did lose your Top 500 placement, did you also lose your Top 500 rewards? Do feel free to upload your screenshot for evidence as well.
Idolator: I don’t think in this instance this is a bug. For greater accuracy, winrate percent also takes into account the proportion of time you spent playing as a hero during a match. If it didn’t, players would be able to switch to completely new hero at the very end of a match and inflate their stats.
bakedpotato: Somehow, I am not even surprised. The function of a bug forum is for the discussion and resolution of bugs, but the forum moderators have not once but twice wrongly interfered and prevented players from voicing their issues. We will not allow them to continue silencing us. Other players need to be made aware of this. The developers need to be made aware of this. Content creators need to be made aware of this. News articles need to be written and Twitter threads need to be exploding due to the sheer neglect this company shows it players. I cannot comprehend how others are not sickened by this treatment…
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So it’s not just one forum moderator that did something wrong and hid our bug reports.
In your screen I can see that this time it was another one that did the exact same thing, which leaves me wondering if that’s the usual standard work practice around here…
Because all I see are hundreds of threads left with no official reply or solution, and all they think about is shamelessly hiding some of the most vocal ones. Brilliant support.
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Blizzard just keeps getting more evil by the day with how they treat their customers even on the forums…
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they gave me a temporary ban for some reason.
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Wait seriously?? Did they send an email for this? Or did they say what the ban was for. I know I lost linking privileges after the og post was deleted, but that’s wild.
Also, watching Flat’s live stream about them scrapping PvE.
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Yeah, I can only hope we can get enough attention on this problem. I’ve been trying to be more active on twitter where they can’t silence me.
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After the recent patch (the one with the JQ buffs) I’ve randomly disappeared from the DPS leaderboard on s3 eu, I’m still on the support one, but I was also on the dps one at #39x or so. (even though I finished 337 it randomly pushed me up to 390, god knows what went wrong but as long as I was there I didn’t care much).
Any update on when will this be addressed?
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Hunter: I have only been monitoring the bug forums since the launch of Overwatch 2, but I don’t think the repeated silencing and removal of large threads was common practice. This may be a bit of a conspiracy, but I believe the reason these two threads were silenced specifically was due to some of the comments encouraging damaging practices against Blizzard in the form of refunds and protests. Even the most vocal players in the largest threads mainly only go as far as to encourage quitting the game, but the moderators may have thought mass refunds warranted a silence…
Blueberry: This may be naive to say, but Blizzard isn’t evil as much as it is completely overwhelmed by Activision’s greedy business practices after the merge. After the news of a comprehensive campaign mode being scrapped in favor of episodic PvE events, which are explicitly battlepass-tied no less, I can only hold out hope that my theory is true…
playboi: I suspected as much. Was the temporary ban also tied to the deletion of your thread? Also, could you paste the text of the temporary ban in a comment? I’d imagine yours was for a different reason than mines, which I explain in the updates section of the megathread, and it would be good to know what other things to avoid doing in order to not get account punishments.
bakedpotato: Could you also paste that message that says you lost linking privileges? As far as I know, no one is able to post links in the forums besides to other forum posts, not even myself despite having trust level: member. And I agree, we need more eyes about our issues besides on the bug forums. Once the issue spreads to other platforms, it should be far more likely for a Dev to respond.
Dawn: Could you link any screenshots of your leaderboard placements before and after the update? Also, do you still have your Top 500 rewards like the player title despite being removed from the leaderboard? You can also request your data from the Blizzard servers and see if your relative leaderboard ranking did in fact change after the update. Under the subcategory Post-Season Leaderboard Shifts, there are a few threads about players shifting relative ranks after a season ends as well if you would like to revive those threads and ask around for updates for their respective seasons.
yo, i do not care about all this LOL. Im on the devs side and do not care about this as much as yall. These bugs are pretty much all cosmetic I literally only posted for the devs and not for whatever secret socieity of people who think team 4 is evil
I’m not sure what the purpose of your comment is. The function of a bug forum is for players to be vocal about issues that affect them and that they want fixed. Your comment neither describes an issue you are facing nor meaningfully contributes to any of the conversations above.
This megathread compiles more than just cosmetics bugs. There are players who have dedicated seven years to their accounts for their achievements, cosmetics, and player data who have had their accounts falsely and permanently banned due to oversights in the Defense Matrix system. There are players in this thread who have played for hundreds of hours to earn competitive rewards and want to be accordingly recognized on the leaderboards and rewarded for their efforts. I’m sure you understand how frustrating that is.
I have no doubt Team 4 cares more deeply about this game than any of us, but that does not excuse them from players voicing criticism for poorly implemented system changes, server issues, and content updates. That is the purpose of these forums.
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Of course what I said comes just from my own limited experience, which in a month consists of:
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Two Mega threads about false bans being hidden without a word of explanation.
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Several proof of automated appeal answers with no solution nor human review (I’ll try to leave below a link to my appeal which was strangely replied in another language):
twitter. com/itzsatanael/status/1652061998492930048?t=9DWMpG6jJuZNI8Ttq9z_-g&s=19
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