: If you find yourself instantly and repeatedly kicked or banned the exact microsecond you join public lobbies, the host likely has the "Auto-Kick Cheaters" setting toggled on.
"Don't worry about it," Dallas replied, his voice distorted. "I just... optimized my build."
The game's anti-cheat acts mostly as an anti-piracy tool. It compares what your inventory holds against what your platform storefront (Steam or Epic Games Store) confirms you actually own. The primary causes for a cheater tag include: Payday 2 How To Know If You Have A Cheater Tag
The cheater tag is completely invisible to you on your own screen. You cannot see the red text above your own character in the loadout menu or during gameplay.
Here is the central question:
While the game does not give you a private pop-up notification on your main menu, the tag is highly visible to every other player in your lobby, and you will see it next to your own name in the chat box or the player list when pressing TAB. Payday 2: How to Know If You Have a Cheater Tag
ShadowDragon99 typed: "gotta go fast."
You will see a white notification in chat: "Potential Cheater detected: [YourName] (Invalid skill loadout)." You will not be kicked, and you will still earn XP.
Go to your inventory. Unequip any weapon that has: : If you find yourself instantly and repeatedly
Once your inventory is clean and the infringing files are deleted, close Payday 2 completely and relaunch it. Join a fresh multiplayer lobby. The system will run a new scan, verify that your inventory matches your platform purchases, and remove the red tag automatically.
The vanilla anti-cheat flags specific inconsistencies between your game data and Steam inventory: optimized my build