Respawn bans 2000+ “dashboarding” cheaters on Apex Legends

“Sucks to miss the opening of a new season, come back next time around and enjoy the game how its meant to be played” -Respawn

Over 2,000 Apex Legends players have been banned for “dashboarding” and abusing a matchmaking bug that allows high-level – or Predator – Legends to compete in ranked games against less-experienced Bronze-level players.

Surprisingly, 1,965 of the 2,086 banned accounts appeared to be cheating on PlayStation 4. There were 121 accounts left, with 62 on Xbox, 44 on PC, and 15 on Nintendo Switch.

According to Respawn’s Conor Ford, who is responsible for security on Apex Legends, cheaters were booted from the game this time for “dashboarding,” which is when players purposely exit back to the Sony dashboard before reputation points (RP) can be punished for a low finish in a ranked game.

Ford also revealed that the team had discovered a second flaw that allowed certain high-ranked players to infiltrate low-level lobbies in order to farm RP against lower-ranked opponents. Those caught cheating have been subjected to “matchmaking bans of varied lengths depending on [the] extent of abuse”.

Banned 2,086 players early this morning for abuse of an RP loss forgiveness exploit (dashboarding) and abuse of a matchmaking exploit allowing high-rank players into Bronze lobby to farm. Breakdown is as follows:

PC-44
PS4- 1,965
Switch- 15
Xbox- 62

????♥️

— Conor Ford / Hideouts (@RSPN_Hideouts) July 30, 2021

ICYMI, angry Titanfall players recently hacked Apex Legends to protest cheating and hacking in the original game, pleading with developer Respawn to fix it. Confused? We’re in the same boat.

Initially, it was thought that the hack only affected PC users, but it was later discovered that the breach also affected console and Switch players around the world. Instead of the usual modes on offer, players were instead encouraged to “visit and repost savetitanfall.com”, a website that says “it’s time we speak up” about the “hacker issues” developer Respawn was allegedly reluctant to fix.

Have you ever wondered why Apex’s ring designer Wattson walks around with her weapons “a bit awkwardly”? It appears to be on purpose. Principal animator Moy Parra recently explained that it’s because the team “wanted to capture this natural innocence in all of Wattson’s move sets”.