MLB The Show 16 News Post

SCEA Bans Many Players for Using Exploits in MLB The Show 16

12:07 PM - June 28, 2016 by RaychelSnr

If you've been on Twitter lately, you've no doubt been seeing Ramone Russell answer fans inquiries about why they were banned over the past couple of days.

Over the weekend, Ramone also posted in the SCEA Forums reiterating that breaking the rules and standards of the community could result in a console and PSN ID being banned.

Quote:


	"If a player is found cheating, exploiting, harassing other players, or breaking the rules in game or here on The Show Nation forums, we will suspend the account for a limited time or even permanently ban the ID and console. This isn't new and we've always been on the lookout for these types of players, but it's important to remind the community of the potential consequences that may await players if they decide to travel down the dark path."

Also of note via TheShowNation (Victor_SDS)

Quote:


	There was an exploit related to cancelling transactions on the marketplace. If someone took advantage of this exploit egregiously, their ID would have been flagged and banned. Flipping cards on the market is not an offense. Buying and quick selling is not an offense. It had more process than just cancelling an order.

A number of players were banned in the past few days according to Ramone's Twitter Feed:

"We banned a number of users who exploited community market transactions. Bans will not be reversed, fyi flipping cards IS NOT an exploit.

Flipping cards doesn't get you banned, we encourage flipped cards, flipping cards is good for everyone."

Several users were quick to claim innocence but it appears Russell came armed with info, telling at least one user they were in the top 1% of offenders of the glitch. In fact, the SCEA investigation into the matter was three weeks long and involved multiple runs and checks of the same data.

This was a bold move by SCEA to protect the online gaming experience for many MLB The Show users. While bans are nothing new in the online gaming world, it does appear SCEA has taken some pretty dramatic steps in order to safeguard the online experience for gamers. While some of the bans are permanent, others are temporary and will last anywhere from days to weeks to months.

What do you think of the bans? Was SCEA right? Is this a good move?

UPDATE (6-30): via Twitter

Quote:


	We hear your concerns. This is very important to us. We are looking into it. We thank you for your patience. More to come soon.

Game: MLB The Show 16Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / PS4Votes for game: 23 - View All

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Member Comments

# 21 Finn @ 06/28/16 04:31 PM

Have you received any info regarding your ban (length, how many times or number of stubs they believe you gained through exploit)?

# 22 Jason_19 @ 06/28/16 04:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkrich83


	I find it difficult to buy that people who did something egregious enough to get banned had no idea why they were doing was wrong. Maybe it's just me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I can somewhat understand that, but our understandings of things does not dictate reality.

If you're interested, here (http://www.operationsports.com/forum...0&postcount=36) is a comment where I addressed this in another thread. Here (http://www.operationsports.com/forum...2&postcount=39) is a brief follow-up comment.

# 23 Jason_19 @ 06/28/16 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Finn


	Have you received any info regarding your ban (length, how many times or number of stubs they believe you gained through exploit)?

I can only speak for myself, but the answer is no. The only notification I got was when attempting to click into the Diamond Dynasty section of The Show was a vague network error pop-up message that read: "You are banned: cheating, abuse of the game's points system, etc."

# 24 bkrich83 @ 06/28/16 04:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason_19


	I can somewhat understand that, but our understandings of things does not dictate reality. If you're interested, here (http://www.operationsports.com/forum...0&postcount=36) is a comment where I addressed this in another thread. Here (http://www.operationsports.com/forum...2&postcount=39) is a brief follow-up comment.

Interesting. To me it's still a tough sell that you'd get banned after a few cancelled transactions. If that's truly what happened then I hope your situation is rectified. Truly I do. From my perspective and I am a cynic, it's hard for me to buy that's how it went down for so many people.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

# 25 Finn @ 06/28/16 04:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason_19


	I can only speak for myself, but the answer is no. The only notification I got was when attempting to click into the Diamond Dynasty of The Show was a vague network error pop-up message that reads: "You are banned: cheating, abuse of the game's points system, etc."

Well I hope in your case if the bans are mostly coming from this cancellation exploit then you may have only been caught up in the mess a couple of times and the ban will be very short term. Not knowing the number of times the data is saying your user id exploited the market is tough and understandably frustrating.

# 26 redsox4evur @ 06/28/16 04:42 PM

Yea if you did this unwillingly (like 1 time) you will get your account back. Just give SDS some time and they will fix the situation. It's been a day at most they are probably being flooded with emails about this. Or you can tweet Ramone and ask him to check your account and see how many times you abused and how many stubs you got doing it.

Also I'm with Bkrich if you are getting millions of stubs from this you should know something is up. You can't persuade me to say you had no idea how you got that many subs.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

# 27 Jason_19 @ 06/28/16 04:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bkrich83


	Interesting. To me it's still a tough sell that you'd get banned after a few cancelled transactions. If that's truly what happened then I hope your situation is rectified. Truly I do. From my perspective and I am a cynic, it's hard for me to buy that's how it went down for so many people. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I completely understand. I appreciate the kind and mature words.

I hate the idea of wasting time trying to defend myself online, but my character and integrity is something that I take very seriously. I know how skeptical people are about these things and rightfully so. I also know that a lot of people will automatically assume I'm lying because almost everyone does. That's not me though. Lying is one thing that disappoints and angers me more than just about anything besides acts of violence against other people. I have been put in some awful situations because I won't lie to people. If anything, I just hope that San Diego Studios investigates this further in the hopes of preventing people from being banned like this in the future when they either did nothing wrong or did something that they have no idea of.

# 28 bkrich83 @ 06/28/16 04:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason_19


	I completely understand. I appreciate the kind and mature words. I hate the idea of wasting time trying to defend myself online, but my character and integrity is something that I take very seriously. I know how skeptical people are about these things and rightfully so. I also know that a lot of people will automatically assume I'm lying because almost everyone does. That's not me though. Lying is one thing that disappoints and angers me more than just about anything besides acts of violence against other people. I have been put in some awful situations because I won't lie to people. If anything, I just hope that San Diego Studios investigates this further in the hopes of preventing people from being banned like this in the future when they either did nothing wrong or did something that they have no idea of.

I totally understand. As I said I am a cynic by nature. That said if what you say is true from what I've been told your ban should be short lived. Good luck to you.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

# 29 Jason_19 @ 06/28/16 04:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redsox4evur


	Yea if you did this unwillingly (like 1 time) you will get your account back. Just give SDS some time and they will fix the situation. It's been a day at most they are probably being flooded with emails about this. Or you can tweet Ramone and ask him to check your account and see how many times you abused and how many stubs you got doing it. Also I'm with Bkrich if you are getting millions of stubs from this you should know something is up. You can't persuade me to say you had no idea how you got that many subs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh, they're not all temporary bans? Well, that's great to hear.

I pay very close attention to the amount of stubs I have and I have never noticed any differences except for one time like maybe 4-6 weeks ago where I hadn't been on in a few days and I logged back on had maybe 28,000-40,000 more stubs that I remember having. I think I went from what I thought was like 40,000 or 45,000 stubs to around 70 or 75,000. I thought I just remembered the amount I had incorrectly. Plus, I had some transactions go through during that time so I didn't really think anything of that other than that initial thought of "hmm...I thought I had less that that".

I usually try to keep about 50 or 60,000-100,000 stubs free for buying and selling though so I almost always have something in that area.

# 30 extremeskins04 @ 06/28/16 04:54 PM

I can totally understand the people that legitimately did not know about the exploit, but there are many people that are trying to pass off that they did nothing wrong when in fact they did, and they know it.

They were caught. The bans cometh. And now people are upset that they were caught, so they blame SDS for micro transactions and start screaming law suits.

Seriously?

# 31 Ghost Of The Year @ 06/28/16 05:07 PM

Hopefully this will lead to more vigorous game testing of all scenarios before implementation of any sorts.

# 32 19 @ 06/28/16 07:27 PM

You can be competitive in this game without spending any money. Yes, it takes some time, and some good pack luck, but it can be done.

I can field a DD team of almost all diamonds, and I haven't spent a dime apart from the initial purchase.

# 33 iamgramps @ 06/28/16 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	Alot of you guys in here are blindly defending SDS decision on this without knowing the facts. I am all for banning cheaters but there is no way thousands knew about this and kept it a secret. Also 1500 or so were banned and thats only 1 pct so you are telling me 150k knew about the exploit and kept it a secret and/or decided to not further exploit it? I have had tons of friends who got banned and they have done nothing but help the community to find bugs n glitches earlier this year. I know for a fact they did nothing. To those that did willingly exploit it then they deserve it. But I know alot got wrongfully banned and I hope SDS is willing to admit if they are wrong. Thats all i got to say.... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

They knew exactly what they were doing. SDS is not in the business of giving away free stubs. As soon as they knew they were getting something for nothing, that should have been a red flag that a glitch had occurred. I'm not buying the "I didn't know" story, especially if the glitch occurred over 30 times as reported by SDS.

# 34 Jason_19 @ 06/28/16 08:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamgramps


	They knew exactly what they were doing. I'm not buying the "I didn't know" story, especially if the glitch occurred over 30 times as reported by SDS.

Thankfully, your opinion doesn't dictate reality.

# 35 iamgramps @ 06/28/16 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason_19


	Thankfully, your opinion doesn't dictate reality.

What you all did was buy a candy bar from a vending machine for $1. Instead of receiving the one candy bar you purchased, you received 2. Instead of walking away from the machine, you all decided to take advantage of the machine. So, you all did it again and, guess what, you all got 2 candy bars for the price of one. By now, common sense should tell a person the machine is malfunctioning. Nope, instead you all kept repeating the same action. Again, you all knew.

# 36 Jason_19 @ 06/28/16 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamgramps


	What you all did was buy a candy bar from a vending machine for $1. Instead of receiving the one candy bar you purchased, you received 2. Instead of walking away from the machine, you all decided to take advantage of the machine. So, you all did it again and, guess what, you all got 2 candy bars for the price of one. By now, common sense should tell a person the machine is malfunctioning. Nope, instead you all kept repeating the same action. Again, you all knew.

I didn't do that though. Shame how so many people in modern society always try to pretend to be in the know when they're as ignorant as anyone can be about something. Just because you believe something to be true, that doesn't mean that is. I'm not saying that people didn't do that, but I didn't and I doubt I'm not the only person who that applies to.

# 37 cardinalbird5 @ 06/28/16 09:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iamgramps


	What you all did was buy a candy bar from a vending machine for $1. Instead of receiving the one candy bar you purchased, you received 2. Instead of walking away from the machine, you all decided to take advantage of the machine. So, you all did it again and, guess what, you all got 2 candy bars for the price of one. By now, common sense should tell a person the machine is malfunctioning. Nope, instead you all kept repeating the same action. Again, you all knew.

Many people are not even aware they did it or what they did. I am sure theres a few who willingly did it but many would not be writing these long messages on twitter, expressing their concerns and entire story one by one if they were all guilty.

Plus I personally know a few guys who got banned who have done alot for the community and Diamond Dynasty in general. We helped report bugs , DDOSers and glitches early on in April trying to help SDS as much as we can. Now two of those guys are banned, plus many more, with no real explanation besides of being accused of a stub glitch they have no idea existed.

If there were 1500 guys banned that excessively exploited this glitch since April ( apparently only the top 1 pct)then tell me how would this have been kept a secret for three months when the collection glitches and stub glitches in previous iterations spread like a wildfire within 20 minutes of a few individuals finding out?

Theres just nothing adding up here plus the fact I know one of my friends was accused of canceling an order worth 100 stubs a few times...if people were knowingly doing this then that is a pretty lousy way to cheat and get banned over a few stubs.

Not to mention the fact that many that were banned admitted to spending 500 plus on the game. Why would they cheat and risk that?

Lastly, SDS has already had tons of things go wrong already with the game. You do not think there is a possibility that their queries were falsely flagging users that used the website market?

None if it makes sense. I love the dev team and this game. I did not get banned and spend a ton of time playing it and being involved with the community. I am just trying to be fair here and stick up for those that got banned with no explanation. I realize the devs are not perfect and mistakes happen but it does not mean that we cannot constructively criticize them when it is called for.

In reality, this is SDS fault and not the consumers. Not certain peoples fault that their market had a few loopholes and some either unknowingly exploited it or their data was just falsely flagging anyone using the website. Anyways the lack of communication from the official mlb the show twitter is the biggest problem right now.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

# 38 cardinalbird5 @ 06/28/16 09:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jason_19


	I didn't do that though. Shame how so many people in modern society always try to pretend to be in the know when they're as ignorant as anyone can be about something. Just because you believe something to be true, that doesn't mean that is. I'm not saying that people didn't do that, but I didn't and I doubt I'm not the only person who that applies to.

Yeah alot of people in here probably dont know anyone that got banned personally or even know whats fully going on tbh.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

# 39 KBLover @ 06/28/16 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	In reality, this is SDS fault and not the consumers. Not certain peoples fault that their market had a few loopholes and some either unknowingly exploited it or their data was just falsely flagging anyone using the website. Anyways the lack of communication from the official mlb the show twitter is the biggest problem right now.

I think the thing is - does it mess with the fair competitiveness of the mode?

I don't know what the stubs do aside from letting you buy cards and packs. If being able to generate free stubs without using the market correctly, meaning you can get the advantage over people who buy/sell/pay/farm/whatever to get stubs, then I could see why that would get shut down.

It's like if an RTS had an obvious exploit to give your units/faction superior powers that it/they shouldn't have, or I guess in this case, a way to just generate free resources at will for the whole match.

Is it the gamers' fault that the exploit is there? No. They didn't make the game. But imo that doesn't mean the devs should turn a blind eye to the abusers. Otherwise, the only people who suffer are those that don't use/won't use/don't know the exploit. I don't think that's particularly fair.

If anyone was unfairly flagged, I hope they get it straightened out.

# 40 WaitTilNextYear @ 06/28/16 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	Many people are not even aware they did it or what they did. I am sure theres a few who willingly did it but many would not be writing these long messages on twitter, expressing their concerns and entire story one by one if they were all guilty.

I don't think going nuts on Twitter is proof one way or another. People can easily maintain a veneer of innocence when they are guilty. Happens all the time--both people acting outraged on Twitter and people lying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	Plus I personally know a few guys who got banned who have done alot for the community and Diamond Dynasty in general. We helped report bugs , DDOSers and glitches early on in April trying to help SDS as much as we can. Now two of those guys are banned, plus many more, with no real explanation besides of being accused of a stub glitch they have no idea existed.

SCEA probably should've weighed something like that, but it would be tough from a manpower standpoint to take each case individually and go through an entire history, giving brownie points for good deeds.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	If there were 1500 guys banned that excessively exploited this glitch since April ( apparently only the top 1 pct)then tell me how would this have been kept a secret for three months when the collection glitches and stub glitches in previous iterations spread like a wildfire within 20 minutes of a few individuals finding out?

Was it really secret if thousands of people were already exploiting it? Do you mean it would've been a bigger phenomenon on the OS boards? Probably. Somebody would've spilled the beans if they had a credible way to get free stubs. It would be hard to determine if conversations like this were happening privately though. Or via Reddit/Twitter.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	Theres just nothing adding up here plus the fact I know one of my friends was accused of canceling an order worth 100 stubs a few times...if people were knowingly doing this then that is a pretty lousy way to cheat and get banned over a few stubs.

I think people have proven they will "grind" for any amount of stubs no matter how small or large. Although I still really don't understand what the actual exploit is/how it worked, if it was just cancelling an order and getting stubs, this could be done relatively quickly so 100 stubs in a few seconds is not a bad deal at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	Not to mention the fact that many that were banned admitted to spending 500 plus on the game. Why would they cheat and risk that?

This might be the weakest point in your argument. The spending of large sums of money, if anything, shows a compulsive behavior [found quite a bit in the microtransaction modes imo---"so so and got this player so I have to get it too and then show it off"...you see that thinking in the DD forums a lot] that would lend itself to wanting to find glitches/exploits/shortcuts and spend less time accumulating by playing.

This will come off as judgmental, but I really hope people aren't spending that much scratch on a make believe card game because they might need help with compulsive behavior. Plus, you are taking people at face value, who could be exaggerating the amount they spent to fit some sort of narrative.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	Lastly, SDS has already had tons of things go wrong already with the game. You do not think there is a possibility that their queries were falsely flagging users that used the website market?

I don't know how their data was used, but this is certainly plausible. While they produce a good game, there are always mistakes and oversights. They are human after all. Without knowing what they consider the exploit to be and what data they based decisions on, it's impossible to tell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	None if it makes sense. I love the dev team and this game. I did not get banned and spend a ton of time playing it and being involved with the community. I am just trying to be fair here and stick up for those that got banned with no explanation. I realize the devs are not perfect and mistakes happen but it does not mean that we cannot constructively criticize them when it is called for.

To be fair, there will be a lot of whining and crying even if SDS did the bans only for people who 100% deserved them (just look at any complaint thread on OS for evidence of this). I would speculate that most users who turn to exploiting the game for fun are not going to be in your top quartile of being the most mature and levelheaded.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardinalbird5


	In reality, this is SDS fault and not the consumers. Not certain peoples fault that their market had a few loopholes and some either unknowingly exploited it or their data was just falsely flagging anyone using the website. Anyways the lack of communication from the official mlb the show twitter is the biggest problem right now.

I wouldn't go that far to blame it all on the developers. SDS creates a product each year to the best of their ability and each year, due to their staffing limitations and the complexities of making/testing a game, they have to fix and patch several things. To compound this, they have people deliberately trying to break the rules, commit fraud, and generally give them a bad time. I think the problem is the bad seeds that cause the market deformations and the need for bans due to this behavior. If nobody was exploiting this exploit, then nobody would've been banned at all. This is just SDS responding to issues that users have created to try and level things out.

All of this being said, it would be very disappointing to a lot of people if they were wrongly banned due to SDS having imperfect tracking data or interpreting the data they do have in a way that results in unfair bans.

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