As players eagerly await the start of Marvel Rivals Season 1 and the new heroes it will bring, some fans are already dealing with one of online gaming’s biggest frustrations – unfair bans. Recently, the Marvel Rivals community manager issued an apology to players in the official Discord, sharing that they uncovered a series of false bans that unfairly kicked certain users out of the game. Thankfully, the apology also comes alongside a fix that should restore account access for affected users.
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The word “ban” has two meanings in the Marvel Rivals community, thanks to the feature that allows teams to vote on specific banned characters during competitive pay. These bans prevent certain characters from being used in matches, giving players the option to avoid over-used heroes and villains. This is temporary per-match and impacts available characters, not player accounts. With these character bans, all players can still partake, but may need to switch up their main.
The second type of ban in Marvel Rivals is when a specific user is removed from the game entirely due to inappropriate or cheating behavior. It’s these player bans, not character-specific bans, that led to this recent Marvel Rivals developer apology.
So long as there are games, there will be people who try to cheat at them, using software and other methods to gain unfair advantages to snag wins and rewards. As such, most games have something in place to catch gamers who violate the terms of service. Those systems aren’t always foolproof, which can result in cheaters slipping through the cracks and, even worse, in innocent players being incorrectly banned.
Why Some Marvel Rivals Players Were Unfairly Banned
According to the message from the Marvel Rivals community manager, it’s the second issue that recently plagued many fans of the game. Specifically, some users “playing in compatibility layer programs” were “mistakenly flagged as cheaters.” They clarified that these individuals were not using cheating software, but that their accounts were banned due to the incorrect flags that labeled them as violating the game’s terms of service. Given that the game is already gaining a reputation for the ban duration of 100 years for suspected cheating, incorrectly flagging accounts as cheaters can have genuinely lifelong consequences.
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Hence why the Marvel Rivals team felt the need to issue a heartfelt apology. “We sincerely apologize for this situation and want to assure you that we do not & will not ban players who are playing fairly and without cheating,” their post reads. While it’s certainly not ideal to have to issue such an apology so early on in the life cycle of a game, this one is backed by quick action. The affected players should already have their bans lifted, and the reasons for the incorrect flags have been identified. In theory, this should prevent the same issue from recurring, allowing players to use the compatibility layer programs without fear in the future.
According to this lengthy explanation, the Marvel Rivals team is committed to preventing cheaters and to ensuring that their detection systems are working properly. They also request that anyone who suspects cheating behavior should report it immediately, which will prompt the detection system to take action.
For any Marvel Rivals fans who believe they were impacted by the wrongful bans but have yet to see their account access restored, the support team can be reached via in-game support or on the Marvel Rivals Discord.
