Apex Legends Players Who Don't Contribute to Teams Will Start Getting Banned Soon

Apex Legends players who rely on their teammates to do absolutely everything for them and get carried through a match will soon be facing temporary bans, Respawn Entertainment said. Players who are still at least trying to do something should be fine, even if they're not doing well, but those who make no effort to contribute to the team and instead prefer "piggy-backing" off teammates as Respawn called it will risk being banned.

Whether you want to call it "boosting" or "piggy-backing," it's a scenario that anyone familiar with a competitive game will likely have experienced before. Someone goes beyond just having a bad game and makes it clear that they're not willing to help the team, but the team wins anyway and the problematic player benefits regardless. For Apex Legends specifically, Respawn said this is usually associated with things like a player not even picking up a weapon or firing a shot.

"Piggy-backing is when a player drafts off other players in the squad to carry them to a good position and level up faster but doesn't actually participate in the match [meaning they never collect a weapon, fire a shot, don't deal any damage, etc]," Respawn said.

To counter that problem, Respawn said it's been looking into game data to figure out how prevalent the issue is and the number of games that it's affecting. The verdict after those investigations is that Respawn will begin issuing temporary bans to players who are found exhibiting this behavior, and if the problem keeps up, a permanent ban could be in order.

"After looking at the data and internal discussions, we've decided that in the future we'll start instituting temp bans for players that exhibit piggy-backing behavior and extreme cases could lead to a permanent ban," Respawn said. "This change will not be immediate but wanted to give a heads up to players so you can adjust that behavior."

There's always a chance that players will find a way to navigate their way around the anti-piggy-backing measures, and some players who have a few bad games in a row may be unfairly banned, though it'll be a minute before players see the feature implemented anyway.

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