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Is FoE Helper now a prohibited tool on Forge Of Empires?

Heinrich IV

Merchant
I am using the FoE Helper for a long time and it was always working fine. Mainly for finding the required FP to spend to GB it is great.

Today I got banned on my beta account:

Reason:​

Your account has been temporarily blocked because our system detected that you were using prohibited software to interact with the game.
Please keep in mind that usage of bots and scripts is not permitted. We would like to ask you to deactivate the prohibited software immediately.
Thank you for your cooperation.

The only additional software beside the browser is FoE helper so I wonder if FoE helper got prohibited in meantime.
Unfortunately no answer from Support so I do not have any further information.
 
Solution
FoE Helper was never "allowed". It's a 3rd party modification of the game and those are explicitly *not* allowed under the ToS.

It has been something that was tolerated (i.e. not allowed, but not a cause of bans) to the extent it didn't impact others experience in the game.

I can't speak to whether that's changed, but "it's only FoE Helper" is not a sufficient defense if they decided to stop tolerating it. I have heard this song on reddit as well of late. So perhaps might be best to stop using it if you do.
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beelzebob666

beelzebob666

Overlord
Pathfinder
Spoiler Poster
We have been informed that Inno is very well able to detect whether the helper is used or not. Independently thereof I would see the Helper as a "tolerated" tool.

Also we have been contacted by Inno when they wanted specific features to be removed from the helper and we complied with those requests. For that very reason alone I would expect them to also contact us (and in fact the whole player base) in case they decided to categorically ban usage of the Helper before they implement any banning. If they did that without any warnings, they would make 100k+ Players very mad.

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Heinrich IV

Merchant
beelzebob666 said:
We have been informed that Inno is very well able to detect whether the helper is used or not. Independently thereof I would see the Helper as a "tolerated" tool.

Also we have been contacted by Inno when they wanted specific features to be removed from the helper and we complied with those requests. For that very reason alone I would expect them to also contact us (and in fact the whole player base) in case they decided to categorically ban usage of the Helper before they implement any banning. If they did that without any warnings, they would make 100k+ Players very mad.

View attachment 10226
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Thanks a lot for this information. That means FoE helper should not be the cause of the ban but based on this and the fact that I did not use any other tools with FoE would mean the ban is a mistake or mis measurement by inno games.
Unfortunately there is still (3 days after ban) no additional information from support.
 
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Heinrich IV

Merchant
New Information from Support:
We are sorry to hear, that you have experienced a ban in our game. Unfortunately, our system detected that you were using a third-party program or plugin that is not allowed to be used in our game.

In order to make sure our detection for third-party programs and plugins stays accurate in the future as well, we can't give you any details about the way we have detected you or which program you have been using.

In order to avoid any further sanctions, we strongly recommend removing any third party program and plugin that could influence our game. In some cases, it may also help to re-install the browser again. Thank you for your understanding. Should you have any further questions regarding this matter, please let us know.
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So I still have no idea if FoE Helper is the root cause or if the probelm is caused by an incorrect measurement.

Finally I simply want to know if I have to disable FoE Helper to play FoE or if Inno Games just has a bug in the their detection.
In case it is a bug I may not see it again - I played Foe for years with more or less the same environemt and never got banned.
However it means there is always the risk of getting incorrectly banned without a way to defeat.

I asked now specially if I have to deactivate "FoE Helper". I will let you know if/when I get answer.
 
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Arch1e

Marquis
Heinrich IV said:
I asked now specially if I have to deactivate "FoE Helper". I will let you know if/when I get answer.
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How did you get along with this? A friend of mine just messaged to say they have had a ban, and similarly, the only thing they have is FoE Helper. Apparently support are not telling them what they have supposedly used either. It’s completely Kafkaesque. ‘Can’t tell you how we detect’ is vastly different from telling someone what they supposedly have been using.
 
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Heinrich IV

Merchant
Unfortunately no more answer from support. I got the same answer: they do not want to explain what was wrong.
To be honest that part is ok for me. But what I would have liked is if it was caused by FoE Helper.
If so then I have to decide if I want to play FoE without the helper what I most likely will not do as it simply reduces to fun while increasing the play time.
If it is not the FoE Helper it is most likely any bug in the detection routine. In this case there is nothing I can do. If it will go on happening I may decide to stop playing FoE as I do not like to feel "innocently accused".
 
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Pericles the Lion

Emperor
Heinrich IV said:
Unfortunately no more answer from support. I got the same answer: they do not want to explain what was wrong.
To be honest that part is ok for me. But what I would have liked is if it was caused by FoE Helper.
If so then I have to decide if I want to play FoE without the helper what I most likely will not do as it simply reduces to fun while increasing the play time.
If it is not the FoE Helper it is most likely any bug in the detection routine. In this case there is nothing I can do. If it will go on happening I may decide to stop playing FoE as I do not like to feel "innocently accused".
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What version of FOEHelper are you using?
 
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Arch1e

Marquis
Heinrich IV said:
If it is not the FoE Helper it is most likely any bug in the detection routine. In this case there is nothing I can do. If it will go on happening I may decide to stop playing FoE as I do not like to feel "innocently accused".
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This is what is worrying. If it isn’t what you think it is, it could be anything, or nothing. And if they maintain you have done something, and you have no idea what it is, how are you meant to fix it? The only thing that remains is a bug in the detection routine, as you say, or something you may have on your computer, but may never touch for FoE. Is that even possible? I’m still puzzled. For reference, the case above had a fully upgraded FoE Helper on theirs, and still don’t know either what they had supposedly done wrong.
 
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Heinrich IV

Merchant
Pericles the Lion said:
What version of FOEHelper are you using?
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currently it is 3.2.8.0 usually I get informed when it got updated. It is a kind of auto update.
Arch1e said:
This is what is worrying. If it isn’t what you think it is, it could be anything, or nothing. And if they maintain you have done something, and you have no idea what it is, how are you meant to fix it? The only thing that remains is a bug in the detection routine, as you say, or something you may have on your computer, but may never touch for FoE. Is that even possible? I’m still puzzled. For reference, the case above had a fully upgraded FoE Helper on theirs, and still don’t know either what they had supposedly done wrong.
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Yes, true, that is worrying me. However I can't see what may be wrong. In browser itself I only have FoeHelper and a tab modifier (allowing to color tabs).
Of course there is lots of software on the PC. In worst case it may be even caused by any hardware driver. Of course may also be that I got hacked only that I did not find any hint about this it is for sure not impossible.
 
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angelgail

angelgail

Baronet
shad2389 said:
got a msg from forum today saying i could get banned for using FoE helper in game

wich brings us back to the original question is FoE Helper still tolerated or can we get baned of game for using it ?
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some of the worlds are still sending that like they dont know it ok to use foe helper an all of them need to be informed that it is ok to use
 
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