Fortnite revealed over the weekend that it continues to monitor competitive play for all regions, and if any unfair play is detected, Epic Games take the necessary action.
In a post, the Fortnite Team revealed that once a tournament ends, all players, including the winners, are then vetted by an analytical process as well as multiple teams. The goal is to determine if there is fair play under tournament rules, the Fortnite Code of Conduct, and the Fortnite End User License Agreement as well.
Players who are caught breaking the rules can either be penalized or disqualified. Penalties can include receiving a temporary competitive ban, the duration of which shall be determined by Epic Games. Players can also be removed from competitive play or even receive a permanent ban. Accounts that have received penalties in tournaments in the past and are again caught cheating will have their penalties escalated.
For the World Cup Online Open, Week 1 Tournament, Fortnite disclosed that:
- 1163 accounts were banned from competitive play for 14 days for circumventing region locks and playing in multiple regions through the course of the tournament.
- This includes 196 prize winners who will have their prizes forfeited for playing in multiple regions.
- Disqualified players forfeiting their winnings will result in the tournament results shifting for prize considerations, but won't currently be reflected on the in-game leaderboard.
- 48 accounts were banned for account sharing for 14 days.
- This includes nine prize winners who will have their prizes forfeited for sharing accounts.
- Eight accounts were banned for teaming.
- One winner will forfeit prizes for teaming.
- One account was banned permanently from Fortnite for using cheat software during the Semi Finals.
- This account played for less than five minutes in the tournament before being banned.
- One account was given a 72 hour competitive ban for intentionally disconnecting to avoid giving points to another competitor.
- This is currently a manual process based off of user reports, but we will be detecting this more widely in the future.
Epic said that in determining fair play, it has added a real-time teaming detection algorithm to competitive play, including tournaments and Arena games. This is in addition to the offline teaming detection and server replays that are already in place.
The team said that when patch 8.40 went live, the detection for custom matches was removed. This was to ensure that content creators experience greater freedom when it comes to experimenting on the island. However, the same detection system remains enabled when it comes to competitive play.
Fortnite added that while it does put emphasis on the integrity of the competition, the team expects that when the results of a player are questioned, there has to be direct evidence that backs it up. That way, it does not destroy "what should be a crowning moment of achievement for an individual or team who earned their way there and performed when it counted."
