Questions for IceIX or Will re Cheaters

reckless442

Anyone with any experience in the game knows that what is happening in the current PVP is not legitimate and I am seeing a lot of frustration about the situation. Before locking the other thread, IceIX acknowledged that it raised some good questions. I am not going to name any names, but would like to ask a few other questions to which I think the community deserves answers. So here goes.

First, what steps are being taken to identify and remove cheaters as a regular measure? it seems like there was a sweep for cheaters AFTER the end of Season Two. This included gbr33 and watercat, who were identified and reported at the end of Season One. Are we going to see another long delay before the obvious cheaters are removed? I hope not, because this emboldens the cheaters to be aggressive in cheating early and greatly skews alliances results, as alliance members piggyback off the high scores being put up by cheaters.

Second, if cheating is discovered by multiple members of an alliance, will steps be taken to sanction the alliance? As troubling as it may seem to punish members who don't cheat, it also is unfair to other alliances that are not benefiting from cheaters. If the cheating is obvious and widespread, it seems like some sanction wold be justified. Also, with the super-alliances that trump coordination among more than one alliance, would steps be taken against the affiliates?

Third, what steps are being taken to more quickly detect the following cheats: (1) the one-strike/one-kill hack; (2) the unlimited HP cheat; and (3) alt-accounts that might deliberately tank matches for a main account?

Unknown

I was going to post this exact thread but Reckless beat me to it.

The Devs silence on cheating is disheartening and is, in fact, the only reason I am not buying a Stark Salary this sale. I wanted to put money into the game (I had bought a 5 or 10 HP back back in October and nothing since) but I feel like my dollars are devalued by obvious cheaters.

Reck reported Gbr33 multiple times. We have a thread (that was locked) back in early MAY where she identified him. Meanwhile he was finally sandboxed at the end of Season 2.

Seasoned veterans of this game know what is possible and legitimate and what is not. It is insulting not to hear from the Devs on these issues when we put time and money into a game while others cheat.

Not only are we seasoned veterans, we're not stupid. Irrational spends of HP (2000 at a conservative estimate for boosts, health packs and shields) per person per PVP event is unreasonable. Nobody has the money for that. That's 100 dollars every 3 days, some of these people having maintained this spend for upwards of 2 months.

It simply beggars belief that people would do this with their own money.

Unknown

Sandbox the alliance!

No in all seriousness devs are going to lose way more money from everyone who doesn't like this activity and no longer spends than from potential cheater money.

So it should be in the devs best interest to address the problem and fix it before doing anything else.

JamieMadrox

My take based on what I've seen over the last 3+ months.

reckless442 wrote:

First, what steps are being taken to identify and remove cheaters as a regular measure?

None.

reckless442 wrote:

it seems like there was a sweep for cheaters AFTER the end of Season Two. This included gbr33 and watercat, who were identified and reported at the end of Season One. Are we going to see another long delay before the obvious cheaters are removed?

Probably a bit of yes and no. It seems like they do a bog sweep at the end of each season, but I know a few players who were in S2 brackets that went from 5000 to 5001 at various points during the season.

reckless442 wrote:

I hope not, because this emboldens the cheaters to be aggressive in cheating early and greatly skews alliances results, as alliance members piggyback off the high scores being put up by cheaters.

Agreed. It also does nothing to stop the player from creating a new account and doing it again next season.

reckless442 wrote:

Second, if cheating is discovered by multiple members of an alliance, will steps be taken to sanction the alliance?

I doubt it. It's completely possible for someone to cheat and win without making it so obvious that alliance members notice. We had a member in Omens that was sandboxed after S2 and I'd never have guessed that they were cheating.

reckless442 wrote:

As troubling as it may seem to punish members who don't cheat, it also is unfair to other alliances that are not benefiting from cheaters. If the cheating is obvious and widespread, it seems like some sanction wold be justified. Also, with the super-alliances that trump coordination among more than one alliance, would steps be taken against the affiliates?

I doubt it because it punishes the players that don't cheat and it's impossible to prove that anyone knew there was cheating happening even when it's blatant. As for the affiliates, that's even less likely. As a member, commander, and recruiter for 5D I find it hard enough to keep track of what my own alliance's players are doing let alone what some yahoo in one of the others is doing.

reckless442 wrote:

Third, what steps are being taken to more quickly detect the following cheats: (1) the one-strike/one-kill hack; (2) the unlimited HP cheat; and (3) alt-accounts that might deliberately tank matches for a main account?

Likely little to none or we'd see less of it and not more.

I know it seems like a pessimistic view, but it's realistic based on past actions. I'm with you in that I'd love to see more cheat detection/prevention, but it seems like nobody's really interested in doing it.

I agree with jozier (did hell just freeze over?) in that I'm not going to spend money on the game anymore until something is done about the rampant cheating and lack of transparency. I'd love to see a system where cheaters are publicly outed and accused cheaters that are vindicated are also done so publicly.

I also agree with LoreNYC that this will bode ill for D3/Demiurge in the long run. Nobody want to spend money on a F2P/P2W game where cheating is rampant.

reckless442

I can understand not punishing the alliance in the case of one or two cheaters who aren't blatant. But when players are regularly putting up scores that have not been achieved in the past without the benefit of a glitch like kyipgate or server lag, numerous members of the alliance have suspect rosters, and a lot of the "innocent" members are piggybacking off the crazy-high scores to scores well-beyond anything they have obtained in the past, then it's pretty hard for the rest of the alliance to claim innocence. There is only so far you can put your head in the sand.

Not taking any action basically means the cheaters will have skewed the season results so much that the rest of the alliances can't fairly compete. So some action would have to be taken. One solution would be to make the other members of the alliance sit out the season, though they could compete in individual PVP events and join new alliances for Season Four. Or if that is too harsh, perhaps those who had high scores could be given a set amount of points for each PVP that has taken place prior to the cheating being discovered, say 1000 per event.

Of course, I'm assuming that something will be done during this season, which is not a given.

rawl316

How are people cheating? I see people in xmen 2 with pvp scores of 2000. How is that even possible?

Unknown

I think they're assuming the Jordan-Rules (in This case the Big-Spender rules?)

Seriously half of this could be fixed by either limiting the number of shields useable per event or creating a re-shield timer from when you break a shield.

The hack-fast kill if they're using it probably requires all combat to be active while connected to server for every move. This would drain the bejesus out of mobile batteries. One solution is A. limit the time between attacking the same person. OR limit the time between 1 fight starting and the next fight starting.

The iap-purchase hack many believe they're using might be something D3 couldn't detect unless they get proof that cash is transfering from apple to their own account. If D3 actually gets cash then it's a non issue which means they've coded the game in a way where you can just buy first place.

Another option is just to redo point structures to fixed plateau's with a cap

Ie you can get UPTO 1300 in a pvp max etc. that can go towards alliance or season score, anything beyond that is just for stroking the epeen

Banning the cheaters isn't the only thing that needs to be done. This alternative approach to fixing the game so people can't just buy a win as easy as they can buy a cover makes sense for a multi-player game. Any idiot can shield-hop to 2k or 3k with unlimited hp and a few strong characters. All it proves is you stole your dad's credit card number. Circumventing and abusing the games system and calling it talent is really a pathetic joke but at least your name is high up there so everyone knows you're a cheat.

And if your brilliance in math tells you 2k > 150hp then so be it. Jokes on you

Please D3 don't let it crumble because you take too long to fix the system and remove those who want to play beyond the rules

Unknown

just take shifts refreshing the leaderboard and count # of hops x 75hp. i'd be interested to know the total, i'm sure it's a bit jaw dropping.

Unknown

Once again, this needs to go beyond the forums. Very few players come here. I'll be targeting their social media efforts. Cut-and-paste responses as to why nobody should spend money suggestions of other match-3 games, etc.

Unknown

Ghast wrote:

Once again, this needs to go beyond the forums. Very few players come here. I'll be targeting their social media efforts. Cut-and-paste responses as to why nobody should spend money suggestions of other match-3 games, etc.

"Rampant cheating and slow developer response has ruined an otherwise fun game. . . "

That's my bit for you to add to their social media walls...

Unknown

About 2-3 months ago, I asked D3 what they are doing about cheaters and cheating and they responded that they can not disclose what they are doing about it. While I do understand they can not disclose details; it seems obvious to everyone that they're not doing a damn thing. Those cheaters with inflated scores probably drive up D3s numbers so why would they want to stop something that likely gives them more money?

Unknown

MikeHock wrote:

About 2-3 months ago, I asked D3 what they are doing about cheaters and cheating and they responded that they can not disclose what they are doing about it. While I do understand they can not disclose details; it seems obvious to everyone that they're not doing a damn thing. Those cheaters with inflated scores probably drive up D3s numbers so why would they want to stop something that likely gives them more money?

I'll disclose it to you: "some of us took our hands right, and we place it on the chair, and then we sat our bums on it. some of the others do the hokey pokey, and turn themselves around, and that's what it's all about."

Unknown

I agree with the above that the Devs need to start being more transparent with regards to cheating investigations.

Think of it like an NCAA infraction report.


If exonerated-

John Doe was accused of cheating, as his roster was maxed out in way that used an inordinate amount of ISO and illogical usages of it, such as 3 maxed version of Bagman.

An investigation was done.

It was found that John Doe was paying D3 thousands of dollars in ISO packs and HP packs, which is legal, he's just an idiot.


Ruling - Not a cheater, just a dumbass. Stop sending in tickets on him for now.

If found guilty-

Jane Doe was accused of cheating, as she managed to hit Reckless, Walkyourpath, and Jozier 10 times within 5 minutes using a roster comprised of level 20 versions of Yelena, Bagman, and Bullseye.

An investigation found that Jane was using a hack to guarantee victory, which is a violation of the terms of service.


Ruling - Sustained cheating allegation, Jane Doe is now sandboxed.

reckless442

Teke184 wrote:

I agree with the above that the Devs need to start being more transparent with regards to cheating investigations.

Think of it like an NCAA infraction report.


If exonerated-

John Doe was accused of cheating, as his roster was maxed out in way that used an inordinate amount of ISO and illogical usages of it, such as 3 maxed version of Bagman.

An investigation was done.

It was found that John Doe was paying D3 thousands of dollars in ISO packs and HP packs, which is legal, he's just an idiot.


Ruling - Not a cheater, just a dumbass. Stop sending in tickets on him for now.

If found guilty-

Jane Doe was accused of cheating, as she managed to hit Reckless, Walkyourpath, and Jozier 10 times within 5 minutes using a roster comprised of level 20 versions of Yelena, Bagman, and Bullseye.

An investigation found that Jane was using a hack to guarantee victory, which is a violation of the terms of service.


Ruling - Sustained cheating allegation, Jane Doe is now sandboxed.

If it were the NCAA, it would be more like: "An investigation found that a no evidence actually proves anyone knew that Jane was using a hack, but we're going to make some up and conclude that Reckless, Walkyourpath, and Jozier knew, S.H.I.E.L.D will have to compete with only 12 members for the next three seasons."

Can you tell I'm a USC fan?

Unknown

Those cheats need to be made public. If they're not, then they won't be a "big enough problems" for d3 and demiurge to solve. They make their money on casual, non-cheaters mobile players and could care less about the more frequent players who come here and play by the rules.

Making the cheats public puts pressure on them. They either fix the bugs and create better tools to ban the cheaters, or see the game become unplayable and unenjoyable.

Unknown

reckless442 wrote:

If it were the NCAA, it would be more like: "An investigation found that a no evidence actually proves anyone knew that Jane was using a hack, but we're going to make some up and conclude that Reckless, Walkyourpath, and Jozier knew, S.H.I.E.L.D will have to compete with only 12 members for the next three seasons."

Can you tell I'm a USC fan?

I'd say hiring Lane Kiffin was a bigger disadvantage than the recruiting restrictions, but that's just me.

over_clocked

By the way this forum is not the only one for MPQ - I forgot about it. I googled Slobofix out of curiosity and got
1) http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic. ... start=2880

and

2) http://www.shadowera.com/showthread.php ... st/page165

^ Some familiar names there!

(subscribing to the thread in a way, maybe this one survives locking)

Unknown

The thing about not punishing the alliance based on cheaters would have to be a case by case basis. As Jamie said, sometimes you don't know if its a cheater and if they get sandboxed that's fine, it shouldn't' affect the alliance. But if flo98 gets sandboxed and then the next day we see flo99 in the x men, then they are knowingly using cheaters to win. Obviously all they would have to do to get around this is to just come up with different names but I would say if an alliance keeps getting guys sandboxed it's no coincidence...

Unknown

There's also a thread over at Neogaf, but watch out for brain trusts like shaowebb who see a maxed L.Thor and Lazy Daken and decide to report you as a possible cheater.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread. ... 0&page=104

And guys, the NCAA stuff is awesome but we devalue the effectiveness of this thread if we populate it with off-topic replies. Let's not cheat ourselves the way d3 and the hackers are cheating us.

Professa D

I'll throw my hat in the ring and add that I was also going to buy HP during the sale but not with all of this happening, especially when you add that to the ninja patch re: defensive win retaliation nodes. Hopefully they read this and realize they are losing money by not addressing these issues.

Unknown

Professa D wrote:

I'll throw my hat in the ring and add that I was also going to buy HP during the sale but not with all of this happening, especially when you add that to the ninja patch re: defensive win retaliation nodes. Hopefully they read this and realize they are losing money by not addressing these issues.

I don't think you should be discouraged from putting money into the game if you want to. There is nothing but speculation in this thread. If you want to hold off due to D3's lack of support and transparency in this community then by all means put your wallet away!