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Ultimately no one *wants* to ban people.
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That's not correct, I'm afraid, Zac. I do.
I want cheaters to be banned.
They ruin players' direct experiences in-game.
Not banning them undermines customers' expectations of justice, reduces potential cheaters' expectations of the consequences of cheating, and diminishes the game.
It is being nice to the people who don't deserve it (the deliberate cheaters), and gives no solace to the people in need of protection from cheating players (the rest of us).
If I'm an antisocial git, and I know that the sole, limited "punishment" for using brazen cheat mods against other players - and getting the footage up on YouTube - is a week of shadowban, well... off I go with my memory editor and video cap software, to get all that exciting publicity! Who cares? I'll go and ruin the games of several dozen players in the course of an evening, and get some grrrrrreat rage comm footage. How funny they are when they get angry about a video game. Even funnier if I can find their complaints on FD Forum, Reddit, Steam Community (where
every member of each community can read about my hilarious cheating ruining gameplay).
If I'm an antisocial git, but I know that as soon as I use a memory editor I'll have my account disabled,
I won't do it.
Which one of those two scenarios is better for the game reputation and community?
Hint: It's not the "softly, softly, be nice to the naughty players as we educate them to be wholesome" approach.
Ban them.
Better to read
their rage posts and empty threats than those from the 99.9% of players doing the right thing.