Forza Horizon 3 has been relatively well received on the PC so far, though it has had a few issues here and there. One particularly concerning problem popped up this week, as a wave of players were permanently banned for cheating. This would normally be great news but it appears that some innocent players were caught in the crossfire.
The recent ban wave conducted by Microsoft was intended to target those running the Forza 3 trainer hack, which allows for boosts to in-game currency amongst other cheats. Following the ban wave, posts began popping up on Reddit and it appears some users were banned for having unrelated programs running in the background on PC. One player was attempting to benchmark the UWP app and fix CPU usage using a program called ProcessLasso to maintain a playable frame rate. He was then picked up in the latest ban wave.
Other commenters in the thread claim to have been banned just through regular play. A few players noted that they had sold a pre-order bonus car early on in the game to swiftly gain five million in-game credits. A few other players were grinding a wheel spin move to accumulate some fast in-game cash.
At this point, an employee of Turn 10 studios has been active in the thread, asking those who may have been picked up by the ban wave to message in so the developer can investigate. Some players have since confirmed that their bans have been reversed, so it appears the anti-cheat system may have been a little too aggressive.
In a statement sent to Polygon, a Microsoft representative confirmed the ban wave and called for innocent players to appeal their bans: “We use bans to maintain the integrity of our in-game economy and to preserve gameplay balance for everyone. Players who feel they have been unfairly banned can appeal by sending an e-mail to [email protected], where we investigate all appeals and either remove or uphold player bans as appropriate.”
KitGuru Says: This wouldn't be the first time bans had been dished out to innocent players by mistake. There are some examples of similar occurrences happening with Arma 2 and GTA Online. Hopefully, anyone affected by this can get their ban reversed swiftly enough. Have many of you guys been playing Forza Horizon 3 recently? Did any of you get picked up by the ban wave by mistake?