Psyonix’s ban wave has suspended most accounts that have used bots in online matches.
Rocket League developer Psyonix has revealed in a recent Reddit post that it has taken action against a number of accounts with a record of using bots in online matches until the end of 2022. The studio says it will continue to monitor online matches in order to take down more accounts, should it deem it necessary to do so. The game’s report system has now been updated with a “cheater” option, allowing players to report accounts that are suspected to be using bots.
Psyonix also announced that the studio is working with the engineering teams to develop a new anti-cheat functionality to stop bots. “We are taking steps to introduce additional anti-cheat functionality into Rocket League,” reads the statement from Psyonix. “This is in progress with the engineering teams, and we’ll share more on this once we’re closer to implementation.”
Earlier this month, Psyonix confirmed that AI-trained bots had been spotted in online ranked matches. At the time, the studio said it was actively looking for solutions, and it took them less than two weeks to bring an update on the state of the issue.
Bots were initially introduced in Rocket League by the community in an attempt to evaluate some AI algorithms and run competitions between bots in the local matches and other offline modes of the game. But the tech somehow fell into the hands of cheaters who started using AI-trained bots in ranked matches, scoring goals through weird manoeuvres that even a professional player couldn’t pull off.
The bot-controlled players usually stick to the ground and rarely jump to control a ball, which was just one of the strange behaviors that made the community aware of bots in online game modes. Despite banning the accounts running bots, Psyonix still remains positive towards the teams who want to work on bots in Rocket League for purposes other than cheating or abusing. You can contact the developers for such projects, however, to avoid your account from getting banned.
