Is using a VPN a bannable offense? It falls under cheating on the rules

Is using a VPN a bannable offense and if it's not why is that? It falls under "other hacks" according to the game rules, "Using 3rd party software or other tools to gain any kind of unfair advantage that wasn’t intended by the game, except if they have been whitelisted by us".

https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/19450/game-rules-and-report-system#latest

Using a VPN to connect to a different server is no doubt gaining an advantage, you're practically handed free wins because you are so unsynced with the server. I hate playing on NA West because I get people from Asia using VPNs all the time and it completely ruins my experience.

Comments

  • I guess it depends. Using a VPN by itself isn't cheating, because I know for a fact I use a VPN to connect from London to London to the London DBD server just to help avoid DDOS attacks.

    If you were using one to get from, say, Kazakhstan to NA, with the express intention to exploit, then yeah I guess it is. But then how do you prove that they purposefully used software to do this and it isn't just the DBD Matchmaking system combining itself with server placements to just give really terrible ping all day.

  • @GoodBoyKaru said:

    I guess it depends. Using a VPN by itself isn't cheating, because I know for a fact I use a VPN to connect from London to London to the London DBD server just to help avoid DDOS attacks.

    If you were using one to get from, say, Kazakhstan to NA, with the express intention to exploit, then yeah I guess it is. But then how do you prove that they purposefully used software to do this and it isn't just the DBD Matchmaking system combining itself with server placements to just give really terrible ping all day.

    Well I think the DDOS thing is a myth. Your IP only shows your general area and not a direct location. I don't even think you can get someone's IP from playing dbd lol so that's not a valid excuse to be using a VPN. If that's not true I would like to be proven otherwise.

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101700#Comment_3101700

    Well I think the DDOS thing is a myth. Your IP only shows your general area and not a direct location. I don't even think you can get someone's IP from playing dbd lol so that's not a valid excuse to be using a VPN. If that's not true I would like to be proven otherwise.

    My Internet was completely disabled for 4 hours because my brother got DDOD'd on his Xbox One S and I was using my hotspot for my PC. From then on, I've always played via VPN.

    Also "not a valid excuse" the server delay in connecting from London to London (DBD) is about 0.5ms shorter than going from London to London (VPN) to London (DBD). I can promise you if someone's playing in their own region their VPN won't be doing anything to the connectivity. It's when people connect to other continents it becomes a problem, but then how exactly do you prove they were using a VPN and they don't just have terrible Internet and live far away from the servers? There's no DBD server anywhere in Africa- are they VPNing when they get to London or just bad luck they didn't get into Frankfurt which is the actual closest?

  • @GoodBoyKaru said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101710#Comment_3101710

    My Internet was completely disabled for 4 hours because my brother got DDOD'd on his Xbox One S and I was using my hotspot for my PC. From then on, I've always played via VPN.

    Also "not a valid excuse" the server delay in connecting from London to London (DBD) is about 0.5ms shorter than going from London to London (VPN) to London (DBD). I can promise you if someone's playing in their own region their VPN won't be doing anything to the connectivity. It's when people connect to other continents it becomes a problem, but then how exactly do you prove they were using a VPN and they don't just have terrible Internet and live far away from the servers? There's no DBD server anywhere in Africa- are they VPNing when they get to London or just bad luck they didn't get into Frankfurt which is the actual closest?

    Just saying that your internet went down unexpectedly for 4 hours is not actual proof of anything.

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101717#Comment_3101717

    Just saying that your internet went down unexpectedly for 4 hours is not actual proof of anything.

    Aight so let's also ignore the testimonies of other users like @Pulsar or even Twitch Partner Elix who was DDOS'd and SWAT'd live on Stream just so you can continue your hate boners for people who don't inconvenience you at all and then accuse people of VPN'ing with no genuine proof of it at all because you cannot prove someone was connecting via VPN.

  • @GoodBoyKaru said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101719#Comment_3101719

    Aight so let's also ignore the testimonies of other users like @Pulsar or even Twitch Partner Elix who was DDOS'd and SWAT'd live on Stream just so you can continue your hate boners for people who don't inconvenience you at all and then accuse people of VPN'ing with no genuine proof of it at all because you cannot prove someone was connecting via VPN.

    People have legitimately been DDOS'd and swatted on TWITCH because you are actually uploading and hosting your info. Not on dbd.

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101727#Comment_3101727

    People have legitimately been DDOS'd and swatted on TWITCH because you are actually uploading and hosting your info. Not on dbd.

    Putting the entire DDOS thing to the side, how would you prove someone is connecting via VPN and not a combination of terrible Internet, server placements, and matchmaking?

  • @GoodBoyKaru said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101734#Comment_3101734

    Putting the entire DDOS thing to the side, how would you prove someone is connecting via VPN and not a combination of terrible Internet, server placements, and matchmaking?

    Well a lot of games (Escape from Tarkov) have ping limits. The devs can see your ping and even if you have terrible internet you shouldn't be playing online games and ruining other people's experience anyway. It can be mostly fine in games that are actually based on a dedicated but for whatever reason everything in dbd is based off of what the killer sees. The killer is the "host" of the game but it's actually played on a dedicated server. My first suggestion would be to make the game actually server sided and not killer sided.

  • @GoodBoyKaru said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101734#Comment_3101734

    Putting the entire DDOS thing to the side, how would you prove someone is connecting via VPN and not a combination of terrible Internet, server placements, and matchmaking?

    In EU it's simple, if they're Russian (and you don't have to guess if they are, they'll tell you that), it means they're using a VPN, but in their case it's not really cuz they want to, but have to

  • @Wampirita said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101735#Comment_3101735

    In EU it's simple, if they're Russian (and you don't have to guess if they are, they'll tell you that), it means they're using a VPN, but in their case it's not really cuz they want to, but have to

    Well what if they just speak Russian but they live in another European country?

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101747#Comment_3101747

    Well what if they just speak Russian but they live in another European country?

    in that case they're usually able of speaking different language. I'm not from Russia, but I've learned Russian in school and I try to have a talk with every single Russian I meet, none of them was your example.

  • @Wampirita said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101735#Comment_3101735

    In EU it's simple, if they're Russian (and you don't have to guess if they are, they'll tell you that), it means they're using a VPN, but in their case it's not really cuz they want to, but have to

    tragically it still isnt that simple, because the closest server to Russia is Frankfurt, which is in fact an EU country.

    @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101735#Comment_3101735

    Well a lot of games (Escape from Tarkov) have ping limits. The devs can see your ping and even if you have terrible internet you shouldn't be playing online games and ruining other people's experience anyway. It can be mostly fine in games that are actually based on a dedicated but for whatever reason everything in dbd is based off of what the killer sees. The killer is the "host" of the game but it's actually played on a dedicated server. My first suggestion would be to make the game actually server sided and not killer sided.

    now making the game server sided i can absolutely agree to, but you cannot prove if someone is using a vpn or not. thats my point. therefore, even if it is technically bannable, because its physically impossible to prove theyd have to also start banning for bad internet.

  • @GoodBoyKaru said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101747#Comment_3101747

    tragically it still isnt that simple, because the closest server to Russia is Frankfurt, which is in fact an EU country.

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101746#Comment_3101746

    now making the game server sided i can absolutely agree to, but you cannot prove if someone is using a vpn or not. thats my point. therefore, even if it is technically bannable, because its physically impossible to prove theyd have to also start banning for bad internet.

    My point is that you don't have to prove if someone is using a VPN, you just have to prove that they have an extraordinarily high ping. A lot of games don't let you play if you have high ping period because in some cases (like dbd) it gives you an advantage and is equivalent to cheating.

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101727#Comment_3101727

    People have legitimately been DDOS'd and swatted on TWITCH because you are actually uploading and hosting your info. Not on dbd.

    Nah, can't speak for everyone but people on Xbox can log your IP address using different sites.

    Those sites then offer the ability to "disrupt internet access for a small fee." They also "will blacklist your IP for a monthly fee."


    The people who would hit me off all use those sites and I WISH I could use a VPN in order to confuse the log.

  • Not to interfere on this amazing discussion but didn't MandyTalk answer this already by saying VPNs are allowed or something similar?

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101747#Comment_3101747

    Well what if they just speak Russian but they live in another European country?

    wait, all the russians shouln't be on the EU servers?

  • Doubtful, considering other players can get your IP address in this game. A VPN protects you against targeted DDoS attacks. (Yes, they do happen from foreign cheaters.)

  • @VikingDragonXii said:

    Not to interfere on this amazing discussion but didn't MandyTalk answer this already by saying VPNs are allowed or something similar?

    I would like to see that if she did. I'm genuinely wondering if it's considered cheating or not.

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101772#Comment_3101772

    I would like to see that if she did. I'm genuinely wondering if it's considered cheating or not.

    I tried searching but there are 715 pages about VPNs and brain is shutting down after I got home from a 9 hr nightshift lmao. But I want to say it was something along the lines of it was a approved thing to use but I just can't remember or not.

  • "Using a VPN" basically means nothing by itself. Someone using one for normal reasons like privacy won't pick a server that gives them 300ms or anything, they'll pick the most convenient location that works for what they want and depending on where they live / the locations their VPN provider offers you won't notice at all.

    For the minority that genuinely do use them to inflate their latency, the best way to deal with it is to just make sure extreme latency is a disadvantage. Validate stuff and all of that. Starting to ban for it would lead to a ton of false reports based on "they lagged a lot so they must be vpning/lagswitching/whatever" to people seeing players from very real server dead zones like South Africa show up in their lobbies thinking they did something to make it happen on purpose.

  • I vaguely remember the devs saying VPN itself isn’t against the rules particularly since it is something people use for internet security. That said Lag Switching is explicitly listed as a bannable offense. So whether or not an internet tool like VPN is bannable has to do with how its used, not simply if its used.

  • Dude, people of my country (most of them) using VPN to make a transactions to buy auric cells. (Yes, Russians and Belarus can't buy this game, or auric cells, if someone didn't know)

    Using VPN to get access for "blocked" country's making transactions should be bannable imo.

    I don't see any problems people using VPN just for server connection.

  • @Grigerbest said:

    Dude, people of my country (most of them) using VPN to make a transactions to buy auric cells. (Yes, Russians and Belarus can't buy this game, or auric cells, if someone didn't know)

    Using VPN to get access for "blocked" country's making transactions should be bannable imo.

    I don't see any problems people using VPN just for server connection.

    More to my point that most people who are using VPNs are doing it because the game is banned in their country. Now there is a certain argument to be made that it should just not be allowed to use a VPN to bypass certain laws that prevent them from playing the game.

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101833#Comment_3101833

    More to my point that most people who are using VPNs are doing it because the game is banned in their country. Now there is a certain argument to be made that it should just not be allowed to use a VPN to bypass certain laws that prevent them from playing the game.

    Nah but certain arguments should be made that if your ping is over a certain threshold, lets say on average 200, you shouldnt get to play the game. It just isnt fair to your team mates.

  • @Dead_Harder said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101919#Comment_3101919

    Nah but certain arguments should be made that if your ping is over a certain threshold, lets say on average 200, you shouldnt get to play the game. It just isnt fair to your team mates.

    Let's say for exapmle: This guy have 300+ ping by any reasons, but if he using VPN, he's lowering his ping to the point of... 80 or 90... Should you ban this person for using "a third party" software?

    I don't think so. So it depends...

  • @Grigerbest said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101925#Comment_3101925

    Let's say for exapmle: This guy have 300+ ping by any reasons, but if he using VPN, he's lowering his ping to the point of... 80 or 90... Should you ban this person for using "a third party" software?

    I don't think so. So it depends...

    How does a VPN lower your ping? It lets you connect to servers that are farther away from you which raises it.

  • @gendoss said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101932#Comment_3101932

    How does a VPN lower your ping? It lets you connect to servers that are farther away from you which raises it.

    Sorry, to avoid any nuisances I'm not gonna continue to talk about this topic, only 1 thing...

    "Pss... People lowering high ping with vpn softwares, especially with korean servers"

    I'm out.

  • @Grigerbest said:

    https://forum.deadbydaylight.com/en/discussion/comment/3101925#Comment_3101925

    Let's say for exapmle: This guy have 300+ ping by any reasons, but if he using VPN, he's lowering his ping to the point of... 80 or 90... Should you ban this person for using "a third party" software?

    I don't think so. So it depends...

    You cant lower your ping with VPN, and if you can you should be able to play. 80 ms is 80 ms.