As we near the launch of the highly anticipated FACEIT CS2 Season 9, the matchmaking platform has officially revealed its updated ban policy heading into the new season.
The new ban policy, set to go live starting August 5th, introduces harsher bans for more serious offences like cheating and smurfing, while easing rules for trash talking.
Moving forward, cheating, smurfing, and stream sniping will see penalties scaling to permanent bans, with harsher punishments for repeated abuse. FACEIT has also confirmed that ban durations will now weigh the context of each offence more closely rather than applying blanket punishments.
The platform also mentions that players will be able to enjoy “more room for harmless banter and trash talk.” Prior to this update, players would receive bans ranging from a week to permanent suspensions for trash talking and profanity. With the start of Season 9, trash talking your enemies will be “generally permitted” as long as it doesn’t progress into abuse.
Bans for abuse or harassment now start from a minimum of 3 days instead of the previous 7 for the first offence.
Note that the leniency on the trash talk bans could potentially coincide with the return of the half-time voice chat feature to the platform.
Needless to say, the CS2 community has welcomed most of these changes with open arms. Players have long argued that FACEIT’s harshest bans were often given for the wrong offences, with heated in-game chat sometimes drawing similar or even longer suspensions than blatant cheating and smurfing.
