Battlefield 2042 beta gave us a glimpse of the game and the reporting system. Although the beta was far from flawless with all the bugs and errors, it did give us an opportunity to test the reporting system. Hacking and cheating have become one of the main concerns for multiplayer titles over the past few years. One of the tools that devs use to counter hackers is the reporting mechanism, where one player can report the others if they suspect any foul play.
The efficiency of this system is up for debate for most titles have it and some manage it better than others. A new data mine has leaked online about the parameter or the reason a player can get banned on BF2042 and it’s concerning.
The in-game reporting system allows you to tag the player in one of the below categories when a player reports the other.
- Abusive text chat – Report someone for using hate speech or excessive profanity in chat.
- Abusive voice chat – Report someone for excessive profanity, any form of hate speech, making threats, or harassing other players over voice chat.
- Cheating/exploiting – Report someone who may be using aimbots, wallhacks, or other cheats to unfairly boost their performance.
- Gameplay sabotage – Report behavior that’s against the spirit of Battlefield, but isn’t technically cheating – like spawn-camping or griefing teammates.
- Offensive player name – Report someone’s name if it contains hate speech, profanity, or references to criminal acts.
- Harassment – Report someone for misusing gameplay mechanics to harass another player – like stream-sniping or stalking.
While the reasons seem genuine and in line with most games. When some of these reasons are described, things get interesting. A data mining done by Temporyal reveals some startling reasons players can get reported and banned. The reasons include:
- Stream-sniping
- Stalking
- Spawn-camping or griefing teammates
Players are not happy with the reasons for the bans especially the above three acts in the game. Here is what some players shared on Twitter.
While most of the reasons for reporting are genuine and should not be part of fair gameplay, it would be interesting to see how the devs handle things like stream-sniping, stalking, and spawn-camping. Quite a lot of players count these reasons as superior skills that’s developed by spending long hours and honing the gameplay.
While the inclusion of these new parameters to report players is well-intended and it can easily be abused and DICE may find a situation on its hands it cannot handle. But, before you get all concerned, you should know that the info was data mined from the beta and may not be part of the main game. I guess we’ll have to wait and see in the days that follow after 19th Nov.