Softban Data and Testing
I've been waiting for the subreddit to post this compiled data in. As of November 2nd, 2016 there was a major ban wave sent out by Fromsoft. 6 weeks prior to that I gathered 50 friends, some in real life and some online - most of them having grown bored of the game. As for the results, here were my findings on what did nothing, what gave you a warning and what gave penalization when the wave had actually hit.
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Changing NG Status | Invalid Data Message [1] |
| Warping to an Unlocked Bonfire | No Warning [!] |
| Changing Character Name | No Warning |
| Altering Player Stats | No Warning |
| Changing Time Played | Invalid Data Message [1] |
| Altering Attributes | Invalid Data Message [1] |
| Changing Hollowing | No Warning |
| Unlocking Gestures | Invalid Data Message [1] |
| Altering Appearance | Invalid Data Message [2] |
| Spawning in Spells | No Warning [!] |
| Spawning in Boss Souls | Invalid Data Message [3] |
| Spawning in Weapons | No Warning [!] |
| Spawning in Storm Ruler | Invalid Data Message [1] |
| Spawning in Armor | No Warning [!] |
| Spawning in Rings | No Warning [!] |
| Spawning in Crafting Materials | Invalid Data Message [1] |
| Spawning in Estus Items | Invalid Data Message [1] |
| Spawning in Covenant Items | Invalid Data Message [3] |
| Spawning in Key Items | Invalid Data Message [!] [1] [4] |
| Spawning in Tomes | Invalid Data Message [1] [4] |
| Running Session Info | No Warning |
[!] Penalization occurred if it was DLC-related before release.
[1] Save must be reverted or deleted
[2] Changes can be undone in CheatEngine, saves do not need to be reverted
[3] No Warning if traded in immediately
[4] Warning persists even if handed in
Keep in mind there was no results up until the ban wave had actually hit. A majority of the penalizations that were rolled back were related to the early DLC stuff. I also had three friends with accounts that had 'Invalid Data', the one who chose to revert their save had the warning cleared up after a week, the other had their warning become a penalization for not reverting the save and the other was penalized after their game session for using CheatEngine with the warning (this was not reverted). It also seems they're repeating their behavior with Dark Souls 2 by sending out a ban wave the first two weeks of the game's release and a week prior to the DLC's release.
Posted Dec 3, 2016, 10:49 PM UTC · edited