D3P takes cheaters very seriously. (It's a bug!)

hex706f726368

So back on 7/11/2014, during the Top Gun PvP, I had an opponent show up in my queue that looked pretty suspicious. This is how they show up in my nodes:



The max level captain w/o any blue covers and the very high level c.mags with only blue covers seemed very suspicious. So I checked out the user's roster:



Sorry, guess I caught my volume adjustment while grabbing the screenshot in that last one. Those definitely are not on the user's roster as represented in teh PvP. It kind of looks like some hack is being used to boost levels because a 2 cover captain and single cover c.mags is on the rosters. Anyway, I sent this ticket to customer support on 7/11.

hex706f726368 wrote:

Adore21 of marvel1337 looks like a cheater. On the fight screen, his
characters have higher levels than the shown covers will support. Then when
I click to view his roster, the characters he's using in the top gun PvP
aren't even on his roster, very suspicious.

I've attached screen shots.

I got the following response from Customer Support within 8 minutes

D3PA Customer Support wrote:

Greetings D3P Customer,

Thank you for contacting D3P Customer Support.

D3P takes cheaters very seriously. We will investigate this right away and take the appropriate actions.

Thank you for taking time to file a report and helping make the game fun and fair for all players.

Best Regards,
D3Publisher Customer Support Team

Four days later, on 7/15/2014, I got this response:

D3PA Customer Support wrote:

Your request (*****) has been solved. To reopen this request, reply to this email.

I asterisked out the ticket number just in case that can be used to jack up their ticket system in some way.

I've searched this user's alliance and s/he is still apart of it. I can only conclude that this user is indeed not a cheater. How is that possible? I suppose the user could've sold off the characters after using them, but that doesn't account for the out of balance levels vs. covers and seems highly unlikely based on the user's relatively weak roster.

My only other conclusion, is that D3 either can't detect cheating all that well, or they don't care that much.

Let me know if I'm missing something here. I'm just not seeing it any other way and I'd really like to.

UPDATE

hex706f726368 wrote:

Solved? What does that mean. I see the user is still in their alliance in
the game. I assume that means they weren't cheating. Is it a bug on my
client app? If I had entered the fight, do I get what's actually on their
roster or the wildly boosted levels that are incorrect? It'd be nice to
know so I can act with knowledge rather than ignorance in the future.
Thanks!

D3PA Customer Support wrote:

Greetings D3P Customer,

Thank you for contacting D3P Customer Support.

As of the recent level shift, some users have experienced an abnormal level shifting either with abnormally high characters or characters that can't level. It is a know issue and this user is experiencing such an issue. We are currently addressing this issue and the engineers are working to fix this problem as soon as possible.

Best Regards,
D3Publisher Customer Support Team

Unknown

I saw something like this in the last event, one cover characters at max level (one of them was an IW, oddly enough). I skipped the team because it looked fishy and I didn't want any part of it, but it did give me a big **** moment.

Unknown

Talking about cheater, I got hit by the same player three times in a roll during Lightning rounds. It's only like 2 minutes turn around each hit. How is it even possible?

hurcules

Baltias wrote:

Talking about cheater, I got hit by the same player three times in a roll during Lightning rounds. It's only like 2 minutes turn around each hit. How is it even possible?

Was it someone by the name "A L P H A", without quotes?

I got hit by him twice some 15 mins apart. The first time I saw he hit my maxed Hood/Patch/Cmag with loaner Hood/IM35/MStorm. IM35 showed level 1 or 2 in the battle screen, but when I looked at his roster, IM35 was level 214. Was pretty sure it was cheater roster and I took some screen shots and promptly beat him easy. He had 2 pages of rosters.

Second time he hit me with the same team again. But when I looked at his roster, this time he had 4-6 pages of rosters, with single cover Sentry and LDaken. Beat him again. Did not take screenshot of his roster this time round as I just wanted to get on with farming ISO and lunch.

hex706f726368

Thugpatrol wrote:

I saw something like this in the last event, one cover characters at max level (one of them was an IW, oddly enough). I skipped the team because it looked fishy and I didn't want any part of it, but it did give me a big **** moment.

Yeah, I sacrificed 20 bonus ISO skipping this user (came up in my nodes twice). Didn't seem like a good idea to open myself up for retals against someone who is likely cheating.

Baltias wrote:

Talking about cheater, I got hit by the same player three times in a roll during Lightning rounds. It's only like 2 minutes turn around each hit. How is it even possible?

This happened to me too a while back (http://www.d3pforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11847), but jozier already posted about the user that did that to me. I didn't get too upset about it. That user was ahead of me and I was able to ride retals up the ladder.

ETA: link to jozier topic

Unknown

I actually have screen shots (a pic of my tablet screen with my phone, sadly, do not how to do actual screen shots) of the same person with same people on the same day, but their score was 438. They were a member of the alliance Marvel1337.

Unknown

This was said just 2 days ago here viewtopic.php?f=15&t=12088#p187149:

Demiurge_Will wrote:

pasa_ wrote:

Actually it only implies DU decided to not pursue the case or issue an action. I can think a long list of reasons for that even if they are internally convinced the play is foul.

We've banned every player that we've found cheating.

(We can never know if we've caught everybody, of course.)

(we had several topics even half year ago about how trivial it would be to make most kind of cheats completely impossible by proper server-side management of account data, no change ever happened in that direction so I ust assume DU likes the game this open to any client-based exploit.)

Most of what has been written on this forum about how cheating works is inaccurate.

(Assuming truth is stated in OP) as the shown account is clearly cheater and aftre closing the ticket still in the system I see a limited set of options:

Will
- lies
- tells what he thinks is true while has no f-ing clue is going on around

DU
- just closes reports with auto-answers without ever looking at them
- absurdly incompetent to level that reps can't tell valid game state from invalid
- actively collaborates with cheaters
- plants that broken stuff deliberately to see we pay attention

Unless we go with the alternative of forged report in OP I see no reason for (btw I saw 10/13 cover max-level toon on roster with my own eyes and reported it too, just not bothered following up) pick your poison.

Unknown

Don't know exactly what I am talking about, so please educate.

My understanding is that cheaters are sandboxed. Being sandboxed allows the cheater to play the game, but no longer impact any legitimate player results or rewards. Are sandboxed cheaters still allowed in alliances? Can I still gain or lose points against sandboxed cheaters?

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

Don't know exactly what I am talking about, so please educate.

My understanding is that cheaters are sandboxed. Being sandboxed allows the cheater to play the game, but no longer impact any legitimate player results or rewards. Are sandboxed cheaters still allowed in alliances? Can I still gain or lose points against sandboxed cheaters?

My understanding is that they can't be in alliances, and you can't interact with them (so they can "attack" you, but you won't know or lose points, though they'll see the effects on their side).

Unknown

A lot of people have seen this but I don't think anyone ever goes away because of it. Which leads me to believe it's some kind of bug that the player may benefit from but has no control over.

As far as the sandbox goes... Once you are in the sandbox nobody can see you. You can still play in PvE or PvP and play against non sandboxed people but nobody will ever see your name, your attacks won't register, you don't show up on scoreboards, and you can't join an alliance. Essentially you are "ghosted" and you can run around and do whatever you want but nobody else can see you and you can't affect them.

Unknown

papa07 wrote:

Don't know exactly what I am talking about, so please educate.

My understanding is that cheaters are sandboxed. Being sandboxed allows the cheater to play the game, but no longer impact any legitimate player results or rewards. Are sandboxed cheaters still allowed in alliances? Can I still gain or lose points against sandboxed cheaters?

As far as we know you can't influence the normal state from sandbox in any way, but the world looks pretty much the same except the "real" people can't attack you. Not sure if other sandboxed people can.

The normal alliance is not accessible either, you get ejected and can not join in normal ones (again unclear if you can create a new one or other sandboxed could join in.

Nemek

WorldRunner wrote:

A lot of people have seen this but I don't think anyone ever goes away because of it. Which leads me to believe it's some kind of bug that the player may benefit from but has no control over.

Yeah, that's the conclusion I've come to as well. I've seen a number of reports of when players tank down low they would see these very odd instances of characters being overleveled for their covers in missions but leveled appropriately in their actual roster.

All sorts of theories ranging from bugs, cheating, and anti-tanking measures. I'd be fairly surprised if it were actual cheating...there are plenty of better ways to do it. We've seen plenty of instances where teams show up as lower-leveled than they actually are (though, hasn't happened in a long while), that it doesn't surprise me to see it go in the other direction.

hex706f726368

Nemek wrote:

WorldRunner wrote:

A lot of people have seen this but I don't think anyone ever goes away because of it. Which leads me to believe it's some kind of bug that the player may benefit from but has no control over.

Yeah, that's the conclusion I've come to as well. I've seen a number of reports of when players tank down low they would see these very odd instances of characters being overleveled for their covers in missions but leveled appropriately in their actual roster.

All sorts of theories ranging from bugs, cheating, and anti-tanking measures. I'd be fairly surprised if it were actual cheating...there are plenty of better ways to do it. We've seen plenty of instances where teams show up as lower-leveled than they actually are (though, hasn't happened in a long while), that it doesn't surprise me to see it go in the other direction.

A bug, eh? I considered that option, but it seemed unlikely to me (not that the game has bugs, just this particular one). I've sent a follow-up response back to CS to see if that is the issue. I'll update this thread if I get a useful response.

melyjely

Saw something similar to this a few days ago but thought it might be just a display bug and didn't report it. Should I have?

hex706f726368

hex706f726368 wrote:

Solved? What does that mean. I see the user is still in their alliance in
the game. I assume that means they weren't cheating. Is it a bug on my
client app? If I had entered the fight, do I get what's actually on their
roster or the wildly boosted levels that are incorrect? It'd be nice to
know so I can act with knowledge rather than ignorance in the future.
Thanks!

D3PA Customer Support wrote:

Greetings D3P Customer,

Thank you for contacting D3P Customer Support.

As of the recent level shift, some users have experienced an abnormal level shifting either with abnormally high characters or characters that can't level. It is a know issue and this user is experiencing such an issue. We are currently addressing this issue and the engineers are working to fix this problem as soon as possible.

Best Regards,
D3Publisher Customer Support Team

I guess it is indeed a bug. Wish they just would've said that when closing the ticket. I still don't know what would've happened if I entered the fight. I suspect I'd see their actual levels, but next time I see this I'm going to engage to find out. I'll add this to the first post to close the loop.

Unknown

eidehua is a forum member so we can await his explanation

Unknown

melyjely wrote:

Saw something similar to this a few days ago but thought it might be just a display bug and didn't report it. Should I have?

To me looks like obvious cheater who climbed to 500 pts having just a few solo covers but can play them as evolved characters.
"Should I have" depends on whether you believe it actually helps or just another drop in the black hole.

I'm positive it's not a "display" glitch.

eidehua

melyjely wrote:

Saw something similar to this a few days ago but thought it might be just a display bug and didn't report it. Should I have?

<snip pics>

I'm mainly a mobile player, search up my alliance (Spider Men). This was just an alt account (steam) to test a few things. My first heroic happened to be IW, funnily enough. Recently I entered the Heavy Metal tourney to make sure no S4 was secretly tied to that event, so I could join on my main

And yeah, I was using lvl 70 IW/60 loaner IM40/ lvl 15 thor so no idea why it shows up like that on your end.

Also strange, says I have 436 points, but I only played one match..'
So in addition to issues with the level shift, I somehow gained a **** load of points-- when I get a chance to log back into my PC account I guess I can post the event results (like say top 10,000) that should not correspond with 436 points.

@pasa

No cheats. Why would I have a 2/2 IM40? lol
-- u can also search my forum posts for when I made this account. I was investigating scaling when it was originally prevalent (at least thats what I thought)
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=3492&p=58657&hilit=+invisible#p58640
Back when people were wondering how 1* rosters were at the top of subs

Cragger

I find it interesting that anyone but other alt-account/noobs would be matched up against that roster. There has to be some additional MMR glitching to get matched up against such a new player. Unless Hex is a serious and dedicated tanker..

Edit/add: Could you change the title to something like "A Case study in D3 CS cheat/bug submission" to better reflect the known information in the thread?

Unknown

Pop Quiz:

Which of these two entities has produced more bugs:



OR

Unknown

Demiurge botched a SQL statement. Seems pretty understandable to me.