Boards›Player Behavior

@RIOT Can you please shed some light on the apparent inconsistencies with "3rd Party" Related bans?

Bronze Wanderer·2/24/2016, 6:26:55 PM·12 votes·4,978 views

UPDATE: A statement on what is allowed/what isn't allowed has been posted recently. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/player-behavior-moderation/5dmkJinG-3rd-party-applicationsmodifications-whats-allowed-and-what-isnt

So, in the previous couple weeks, there have been a massive influx of complaints and discussions posted about people being banned by the automated system and given the automated "caught Scripting/Using a 3rd party program" message.

Now, before I dive in, I would like to mention that I have no bias in this post. My account has not been banned, nor has anyone I know been banned. This is entirely coming from what I have witnessed on the Boards and /r/leagueoflegends in the past couple weeks.

With that out of the way, this post is mainly addressed directly to some Rioter who can answer some of the questions I have in this post. But as always (not like I can stop this anyways), anyone can post and add to the discussion.

Players of varying skill levels have been posting about receiving a ban for using "3rd Party" modifications. The specific definition of this is basically meaning that any software produced to interact and possibly modify the League of Legends client, not maintained by Riot Games is not supported and can result in a ban. That part I understand, and everyone who plays should understand that when they accept the ToS, no doubt. However, with that said, there are legitimate "GOOD" programs that can help you better your performance, or generally provide additional entertainment. These include but are not limited to software like BaronReplays, LOLReplay, Replay.gg, SkinSpotlight's Camera Mod, Overwolf and its many plugins (like ReplayHUD, and LOLWiz), Curse Voice, Discord, Custom Skins, Custom Voice Mods, etc. Under this 3rd party clause in the ToS, there is no mention of these being allowed or specifically disallowed. This is because they are not maintained by Riot Games and thus are deemed to be a "Use at your own risk". But this also technically means Scripting Softwares, and general "cheating" modifications are also under this same clause, and are directly used to disrupt the gameplay experience from other players.

Moving on from that, the general TL;DR from that paragraph is that the "3rd Party Modifications" clause in the ToS makes sense, and does indeed have a reason to be there. But the question I ask from Riot Games is what do they consider disruptive to the general experience to the players of this game? A lot can be argued from both sides on this list of software, but it is a legit question I have and I know for a fact many players in the community have as well.

  • BaronReplays, LOLReplay, Replay.gg - Software used to look for a running League of Legends process and then spectate and record the game. Once complete, you can watch back the replay whenever you please. Software like this is used a lot by popular content-creators like Protatomonster, who have worked with Riot Games to produce content in the past. (Replay.gg is an online service that records to their servers then has you run a batch script/shell script to watch back the replay)

  • SkinSpotlight's Camera Mod - Allows you to get more cinematic camera angles when spectating and watching back replays. From what I have learned, this is used by the Cameramen in LCS broadcasts. This is evident when they "Zoom Out" further than the Spectator client (and the game in general) can reach.

  • Overwolf - A popular piece of software allowing you to have in-game overlays in several popular game titles, not just specific to League of Legends. This software runs off community created plugins that allow you to have varying things ingame. Some of these include ReplayHUD which is used by C9 Sneaky in his livestreams, which allows you to replay the last 20-60 seconds of your game and to review it immediately. Also LOLWiz, which allows you to look up direct information on people in your game (Rank, Popular Champions, Preferred Role, etc).

  • Curse Voice - Used to have voice conversations between different people. This ties into the League of Legends client to some point, allowing you to directly mute people by displaying a "mute" button next to their champion icons in-game. Further proving that this does specific things inside the game client to directly track who is on what champion and allowing you to mute their voice, etc.

  • Discord - A new piece of software recently released that will eventually have a working overlay similar to Curse Voice. It says it currently works, but I have never gotten it to.

  • Custom In-Game skins - These allow you to modify game files to have unique skins on champions. THESE ARE CLIENT SIDE. I feel the need to mention that in all caps. This is only modifying local game files to change how champions look. The intended purpose of this is to be entirely cosmetic and not intended to do anything harmful to the game. Different software may have varying effects on this, and may actually do something in-game you are not aware of.

  • Custom Voice-Packs - These change local game files to have a different voice pack for the announcer and maybe champions. Again, the intended purpose of these is to be entirely client-side and not cause any harm to the player experience. Again, results may vary. Some people who may for example play on the NA server (e.g. for latency reasons) change their announcer voice pack to understand what is happening in their native language.

  • Scripting Softwares - I feel the need to mention this as well, but I think everyone and their dog knows what these are. These change depending on "what" you use, but the general consensus is that these pieces of software directly tie into the game and do things such as automatically dodge skill-shots for you, some things as angle Vayne's condemn, etc.

I would appreciate a Rioter's response on each one of these pieces of Software and give a GENERAL idea to the community on what their stance is on each. WHAT crosses the line? WHAT risks you being banned? ARE ALL of these bad pieces of software not worth risking your account over?

My next question is a general answer on how your "automated system" detects cheats. Obviously the specifics of such thing cannot be shared, otherwise malicious software creators can work around this system and be harder to catch. But the question here is to know what they look for, do they look for software directly communicating to the League of Legends client not published and/or supported by Riot Games?

Finally, I would like to know what would happen if there was a bug say with an update to a driver for your, lets just say, Graphics Card. Obviously, something like this happening is RARE, and usually would never happen, and I am sure the Riot Engineers test things in different environments before deploying a finished product. However, with any piece of software, there is never a 100% bug free experience, and there is the off-chance something can happen without you wanting it too. Some people, however claim, that their software is bug-free, when that is simply not the case. This is known as the Absence of errors fallacy. (Wikipedia Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy) Nothing published by a software engineer can be 100% bug-free, and there will be bugs and glitches at some point. If there is something that accidentally happens with such a thing like a Graphics Card driver update causing League of Legend's automated cheat-detection system to be tripped, where is the "line in the sand" drawn? This is something an innocent person can have happen to them, and be locked out of their account with no legitimate knowledge as to why. Obviously for something this major for a GPU Driver update causing it, it can be said that many people at once would experience this. But if there is an "outdated" GPU that is causing the issue, and most people playing League of Legends don't have one, this can cause a massive grey area and can become an issue to many people.

I sincerely hope that a Rioter will reply to this post and give as many specifics to my questions and concerns as possible.

Thank you!

JACOBSMILE Ahri & Ezreal main.

26 Comments

Kathanar2/24/2016, 8:08:08 PM7 votes

There are thousands of postings across all the servers about false banning. I understand the occasional one here and there, that may or may not be accurate, but this is thousands of people who in the last 24 hours have been banned, who are mostly Silver and below being banned for 3rd party usage. Some not even using aethitics changers, like Woxxy or MK, etc.

Unfortunately I was one of those people. Someone posted that the new Raptr update could have caused it. Which in any case, if Riot wants to maintain somewhat of a good reputation, they will admit their wrong, and give back the accounts instead of lying through their teeth like they have no idea whats going on.

ygngd1IwSn2/24/2016, 6:34:03 PM2 votes

willing to get my account back...

Andrew Hammerr2/24/2016, 9:59:11 PM2 votes

AS someone who also was banned, I learned that I think I was done in by the Discord Overlay. It sits on the client and in game so it is a 3rd Party Program.

"No software should interfere directly with the in-game player experience between when you press “Play” and the end of game screen."

This isnt fun sitting and waiting for things to get figured out.

Iqqi2/24/2016, 10:00:44 PM2 votes

After 6 years I think it is time Riot actually comes out and publically posts a FAQ page which leaves nothing in the dark about what they are and are not ok with.

TP892/25/2016, 12:28:44 AM1 votes

Hi I have been banned this is the email I got from riot support........................................

Your account has been permanently suspended following the use of scripts, hacks, exploits or unauthorized third-party programs in League of Legends. Accounts that are caught using hacks to gain an unfair competitive advantage are subject to permanent suspension. We work hard to preserve a fair and competitive environment in League of Legends. Regardless of intent, use of unauthorized third-party programs is explicitly against the Terms of Use, which can be found here:

EUW: http://euw.leagueoflegends.com/legal/termsofuse

Keep in mind that account sharing of any kind is also against the Terms of Use. You are responsible for all activity on your account, so be sure to keep your account information to yourself.

We won't be able to go into the specifics of an account's exploit abuse, as divulging this information could compromise future investigations. Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

MebuChan Player Support Specialist Riot Games

Seems like a general email that they send out after they have banned us. And they dont give us the real reason to how the ban took place. I installed Overwolf about 3 months ago and now im banned. But acording to overwolf the lolwiz loader was approved and helped developed by riot games. So we getting banned because we running this software alongside Leauge Of Legends.

Im really not happy about this and seems like a load of people have been banned recently and think its to do with overwolf.

I really like the way riot can not be more clear on what we have done. Do they even see what the threat is or is it just something not right lets ban them. Money I have spent is gone now. But its ok riot dont ban your ip just the account so you can make a new one and speand more money. Well i wont be doing that. The people who hack and dont spend money or bot accouts for sale there still on the servers laughting.

This is a joke and people should not stand for it.

KillerPenguins2/26/2016, 9:22:40 PM1 votes

Honestly you're probably using something that hooks the client memory without even realizing it, and it's something riot doesn't recognize as safe so you get banned. It's as simple as that unfortunately

Zafy2/24/2016, 7:17:04 PM1 votes

But this is a legitimate discussion, I for one want to see their stance on everything as well. It doesn't really seem fair that Riot doesn't want to give an official stance on any 3rd party program but then we can still be punished or banned for using them even if they don't impact League or the game in general. When once a Rioter stated that voice pack changes are fine, now a Rioter from EUW is stating that it CAN still get you in trouble. This is all misleading and we really need some kind of clarification on the "3rd party programs" section.

AraMoOse2/24/2016, 7:01:40 PM1 votes

I'm not sure why you need a Riot employee to speak to YOU personally, especially since you claim to not have a dog in the fight. Either way, pretty much all of your concerns could be addressed by a proper reading of the things Riot has already said on the topic, for the past 5 years...