Respawn declares war on Apex Legends cheaters
"Cheaters are crafty and we don't want them to see us coming."
Respawn has declared war on Apex Legends cheaters - although don't expect the developer to reveal its plan of attack.
In a post on reddit, Respawn community manager Jay Frechette said the makers of the brilliant battle royale have banned over 355,000 players on PC alone through Easy-Anti-Cheat. But, he added, this was just the opening salvo.
"The service works but the fight against cheaters is an ongoing war that we'll need to continue to adapt to and be very vigilant about fighting," Frechette said.
"We take cheating very seriously and care deeply about the health of Apex Legends for all players."
Respawn, Frechette said, is working on improved ways to combat cheaters, but it'll have to keep its cards close to its chest.
"Cheaters are crafty and we don't want them to see us coming," he said, rekindling memories of one of Destiny's most famous lines of dialogue.
However, Frechette did reveal Respawn is working directly with experts within and outside EA to learn how better to beat the cheats. It's also scaling up its anti-cheat team to help fight the ongoing war. And, it's adding a report feature on PC to report cheaters in-game. These reports will go directly to Easy-Anti-Cheat, which should, you imagine, help clear up the game.
Meanwhile, Frechette acknowledged Apex Legends' spammers during character select problem. Here, players spam during character select and the drop before disconnecting.
"We're keeping a lot of our strategy close to the chest so offenders don't have time to build workarounds before we implement changes," Frechette said. "Solutions won't happen right away but we're on it."
Respawn is also working on crash issues. The next PC patch will address some of the known crashes, "but there will still be work to do as we haven't nailed down all crashes yet."
Meanwhile, Frechette said Respawn is not currently working on a reconnect to match feature, despite calls from some players. Explaining the decision, Frechette said such a feature would open a lot of risk for players to abuse it, and the resources required to get it off the ground would be better spent elsewhere.
And finally, Frechette said Respawn had seen reports of slow server performance at the start of matches and is working to narrow down causes and make improvements. Just don't hold your breath: "If this could be fixed by spending money on faster/more servers we would do it, but unfortunately there is no silver bullet on this one," Frechette said. "We're just rolling up our sleeves and digging in. We'll keep you updated on any progress we make."