GTA Online is currently facing a massive ban wave as thousands of innocent players are allegedly being penalised along with those who have actually used cheats and mods in the game. Basically, when you Google for GTA 5 bans, you will see tons of search results popping out from Rockstar Support Forums.
The search results on Google will throw up hundreds of posts from affected players saying that they were banned for no apparent reason. As MrBossFTW (aka Ross) reports in his latest gameplay video for GTA Online, you can not only see multiple listings about the ban but also read numerous interesting stories on how the ban happened.
As Ross explains, Rockstar's new ban system seems to be taking out random players at once, regardless of whether they were actually involved in using cheat codes or mods for some illegitimate purpose. In other words, it would mirror the effect of firing a machine gun at a bunch of players hoping to kill the target that's one of them.
It is ascertained that the massive ban waves started when Rockstar removed modded money from GTA Online, after updating their in-game suspension and ban system. Basically, this reinforced the anti-cheater system with more checkpoints, leading to more bans and eventually more lifetime bans on offending players.
Unlike the temporary bans, the permanent or lifetime bans cannot be overturned and players who have invested years of time and effort on the game would be devastated with such a move from Rockstar. The newer anti-cheater system has been enhanced with the judge and jury system who are not obligated to tell you the reason for the ban or point out the violations you have made.
Although the improved anti-cheater mechanism has seen greater success in recent times in eliminating hackers from the game, it has also inadvertently blacklisted innocent players from playing GTA Online forever.
The GTA community strongly feels that there should be a provision to revoke the ban if the player is found innocent, after a thorough investigation by Rockstar-appointed jury panel. For instance, several innocent players would have been exploited when they are in a lobby filled with modders and/or hackers.
To be precise, there have been instances in the game when hackers are found throwing money on players or turning them into a Christmas tree. The problem here is that the anti-cheater system will detect all those players involved in this mess as cheaters or modders, just because they were playing in the same lobby for a specified duration.
As Ross admits, one of his playstation accounts were banned for some unknown reason and he luckily got it fixed as it was not a permanent ban.
Typically, there is no way of escaping the modders in GTA Online as you would be running into two types of modders, the harmless and the pranksters.
The harmless ones might just taunt you by offering you a free ride across Los Santos in their modded vehicle without changing any in-game parameters that can affect the gameplay experience of other players in the game.
On the contrary, there are griefers and cheaters in the lobby whose aim is to just get you banned or force you to quit the game after killing you multiple times.
Consequently, it would be your best bet to stick to your private lobbies or invite-only sessions with friends and crew, although you might miss out on some free-roam action in the game. That's a small compromise you would make to keep the hackers and modders at bay while saving your precious account from a ban hammer.
