Apex Legends: More than 400 Diamond players banned over exploit

Apex Legends Season 7 is here and there's a lot of new things for players to explore and enjoy, including new map Olympus and Legend Horizon.

Of course, the start of each season also means a new opportunity to show off your skills in ranked play.

Climbing the ladder is a measurement of a player's skill and commitment, from Bronze all the way up to Apex Predator, where you can find only the very best players.

Ranks in Apex are Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Master, and Apex Predator (Picture: EA)

Unfortunately, some players will always try to find dishonourable methods and shortcuts to the top of the ladder, either by using 3rd party cheats, by paying people to boost their accounts or by exploiting the bugs or glitches in the game.

• Read more: Best mouse settings for Apex Legends Season 7

And for 419 Diamond Apex Legends players, Season 6 will be their last as the developers announced that many players have just been banned for exploiting.

These Diamond players achieved high ranks because they have been abusing a rare exploit that allowed them to get into Bronze lobbies where they would be matched against lower-ranked players.

Because of this, they basically had an unlimited amount of "free" Ranked Points (RP) which you earn by winning games and getting kills or assists.

This glitch allows high-ranked players to farm low-ranked ones (Picture: EA)

Earing Ranked Points takes you up the ranked ladder, but you should earn them by playing against opponents of equal skill, which these players didn't do. 

Conor Ford, who works at Respawn as Apex Legends' "security" says he tracked these players through Season 6 in order to be 100% sure they were exploiting. Then at the start of Season 7, he handed them over a surprise "welcome home" gift - permabans.

To the 419 Diamond+ ranked players who abused an exploit allowing you get into and farm bronze lobbies for RP, enjoy watching Season 7 from the sidelines 🔨❤️

— Conor Ford / Hideouts (@RSPN_Hideouts) November 4, 2020

His message to cheaters was clear: "Enjoy watching Season 7 from the sidelines." 

The exploit in question appears to be a longstanding problem, with the earliest examples being from July 2019, when a player reported an issue with high-ranked players "glitching into lower-ranked games to farm easy RP", which sounds like exactly what these 419 banned players were doing.

Just over a month ago, YouTuber TaylorHobbs posted a guide on how to "play with Bronze players" which basically explains how to use this glitch.

It looks like a rather easy thing to do with just the right timing and a bit of coordination and luck, so it is definitely something Respawn should look to fix as soon as possible or there is the potential for more people to use the glitch.

And while it's on Respawn to solve this problem and it's definitely not a good look for them that more then a year later this still happens, that doesn't excuse people who abuse it in order to gain a competitive advantage.