Restrictions & Appeals

What is a restriction?

Your account may be placed into a “restricted” state when you are guilty of breaking rules that are severe enough to require a community timeout. Some restrictions are caused by automated processes and in these cases your restriction will be lifted without issue.

When your account is restricted, the following features are disabled or limited: - multiplayer participation - in-game chat - private messaging - public profile - global, country and score rankings

What should I do if I get restricted?

First of all - don’t fret! Some restrictions can be erroneous and in these cases, a simple email is enough to have your problem resolved.

All queries regarding restrictions are handled through our support email ([email protected]). Any emails regarding your restriction status as well as appeals should be sent here. Contacting staff members in any capacity alongside creating tickets in the Discord server regarding your restriction/appeal is prohibited and may affect your appeal status if you are persistent with this.

Regardless of whether you are sending an appeal or asking for clarification regarding your restriction, please include your Akatsuki username in the email so we know who you are. Furthermore, you will need to send any emails from the email listed on your Akatsuki account. If you have lost access to that email or your Akatsuki account, please get this resolved by creating a ticket on the Discord first.

If you are unsure why your restriction happened, this is fine and often means that it was due to an automated process. In this case, send an email as described above and ask for more information regarding your restriction - if it was made in error, it will be resolved as soon as possible. If not, you should read the following information on how non-erroneous restrictions will be handled.

Why did I get restricted?

The most common reasons for restrictions are as follows: - Multi-accounting. Multi-accounting is prohibited on Akatsuki, and this rule is strictly enforced. If you have been found guilty of multi-accounting, your first account will be replaced in a restricted state while any multi-accounts will be permanently disabled. This is non-negiotable. If you multi-accounted because you had trouble accessing your first account (or forgot what it was called), please read above regarding regaining access to this account before appealing. - Account sharing. Account sharing is the act of playing on another person’s account, or having another person play on yours. In some cases, you may be automatically restricted for this reason in cases of shared PCs. If this is the case, please see above regarding erroneous restrictions - we can get this sorted! In event of account sharing, both accounts will be punished under the same circumstances. - Cheating. Using any kind of third-party programs or unfair advantages to enhance your gameplay will result in an immediate restriction. If you are unsure whether something is not allowed - ask. We do not take responsibility for you using unauthorised programs.

There may be other cases where somebody may be restricted and the support team reserve the right to restrict for these reasons. These cases are often more complex, and it is easier to send an email and ask where to go next instead of trying to work it out for yourself.

If your account was not restricted in error, you will be asked to wait a cooldown period before you send an appeal. This cooldown period is used for you to reflect on the actions which led to your restriction, aswell as a guarantee to us that you can be trusted with another chance. It is important during your cooldown period that you do not break any more rules and maintain good behaviour - the outcome of your case is entirely up to you!

With that being said, during this period you are free to email to have any further questions answered (such as when your appeal cooldown ends).

If you send an appeal before your appeal cooldown is up, the appeal will be simply ignored. Please do not be afraid to ask when your cooldown is to avoid this becoming a problem.

How do I appeal?

If you are here, then you either believe you were restricted in error or your appeal cooldown has expired. As stated above, all appeals are handled via email ([email protected]). When you send an appeal, you can expect responses to take up to a week. If after this time you still haven’t received a response, you are free to reply to your appeal and ask for an update. If there are further issues beyond that point, then you may as a last resort create a ticket in the Discord to find out if your appeal was received, but we will not handle your case in the ticket.

Appeals exist in order for you to reflect on your actions aswell as convince us that you have improved from your past mistakes and deserve another chance. Due to this, when appealing we expect the following points to be covered in your appeal:

• The actions which led to your restriction. This doesn’t need to be too detailed. This should include the reason why you were restricted, alongside any relevant details (a list of accounts if you were restricted for multi-accounting, for example). You are not expected to remember every date or account here - we are just looking for honesty. If you have forgotten certain details, that is fine, but you must make us aware so we do not think you are attempting to be dishonest. If you have broken any rules during your restriction period, please include them here.
• Why you broke the rules. For whatever reason you broke the rules, please give an explanation for it. This gives us an understanding of how likely you are to be a reoffender. Furthermore, if you broke rules during your restriction, it is very important that you give reasoning for this. You should be as honest as possible here - it doesn’t matter if your reasonings are stupid; we would prefer to hear the truth.
• How you broke the rules. This doesn’t apply to every case. This applies only to cheating cases. If you were restricted for cheating, we want to know what specific tool you used, what it does, how you found it and where it can be obtained. This is to aid our future enquiries with other users, aswell as understand exactly to what extent you broke the rules.
• Why you should be given another chance. This is the most important point of all. People make mistakes, we are all human, and this is why we give second chances. However, it is important that we are able to see an improvement in behaviour to decrease the likelihood you break the rules again. The more violent your account history is, the better we expect this section to be - you must convince us you are capable of following the rules!

My appeal got denied, what now?

If your appeal got denied, then it is likely inevitable you did something wrong. There are several reasons why your appeal may have been denied:

• You were dishonest. If you sent an appeal and intentionally left out details, or did not give the full picture regarding your case, then you will get denied. If you miss details because you forget, this is no issue, but it is important to mention. There is a clear difference between lack of memory and intentionally being dishonest and your appeal will not be denied for things you have forgotten.
• You continued to offend during your restriction. This one is obvious. If you continue breaking rules during your restriction, your cooldown will be reset to reflect those offences. If this is a consistent behaviour, you risk the chance of being permanently restricted.
• Your history is severe. There comes a point with anybody where enough is enough. If you have been restricted on multiple occasions, have many offences and show no signs of improving then we will simply stop accepting appeals. This is not necessarily permanent and it is suggested to wait a long period of time before appealing in this case.
• You sent the appeal too early. This is simple. Wait until your cooldown has passed, and you are free to send the same appeal again. If you don’t know when your cooldown runs out, contact us via the same email and we will give you a date.

I think my appeal was denied or unfairly treated, what should I do?

While our team do their best to treat all appeals fairly without any bias, we will also accept this may not always be the case.

If you feel that your appeal was unfairly denied, you were ignored, or expected a different outcome then we have a process for this. There is another email which is monitored by people who aren’t associated with the appeals team. You can send an email to [email protected] outlining the following:

• When you sent your appeal
• The response you received (if any)
• Why you are unsatisfied
• Any other appeals you sent

Please note that you should not send any initial appeals here - those will be simply redirected to the regular appeals team. Furthermore, please send any emails to the reviews team from the email attached to your Akatsuki account and provide your username in the email somewhere.

It is important to note that emailing the reviews team does not guarantee you will be unrestricted - they will always give a second opinion over your case but this does not guarantee a positive outcome if you are found to be guilty.

Cooldowns

Any restriction cases not mentioned will usually last 2 months, but this time is not guaranteed and will be reviewed on a case by case basis - you should get in touch if this applies to your case.

If you commit another offense while restricted, your cooldown will start again from that date and will be extended by whatever cooldown applies to the new offence.

There are some cases where there will not be a set cooldown. This may be in extreme cases where we may ask you to wait an extended period of time (over 1 year), or not allow you back at all. These cases include, but are not limited to:

• Faking a liveplay
• Excessive multi-accounting and/or cheating
• Exposing personal information of players and/or staff members
• Gaslighting and manipulating members of the team