Without Naming Names....

Unknown

I've spent way too much on my account to risk it frankly.

Eddiemon

Veracity wrote:

Until the Thorverine fixes go through, attempting to detect abuse based on how fast someone wins would be difficult. A lucky cascade can entirely legitimately end a boosted match using those guys in a matter of seconds. And you don't need that much luck to start spewing crits if you got from 6 to 18 red within two or three turns.

While your idea is correct, and I have had matches start with 2 match 5 opportunities in a row, there is still matching time, animation time and so on. Thorverine isn't THAT good that you can expect to finish matches in under 30 seconds or less than 10 moves against level 100 plus opponents.

And the guys he is talking about repeatedly complete it

Unknown

The general rule of the internet is that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. Devs need to do something to implement anti-cheating or investigate those that are suspected of cheating. I for one don't feel like spending time/money on a system that is stacked against me by people who cheat. I don't mind losing, I just hate losing to cheaters.

Fortunately, I'm still too low to appear on any cheaters radar.

Purty_Hawkeye

While I understand the concern I can say that I have tied up with both of them in LR's. We easily traded 20 matches for about 15 minutes and our scores moved about 5 points in both cases. with an all maxed villains team i am pretty much able to keep up with max boosts and go toe-to-toe with both of them. I realized it was childish and sort of stupid but I was in a mood that night. They have more stamina than me but I am not sure they are cheating.

Unknown

Thor + wolvie (both 2stars!). The end

Unknown

Purty Hawkeye wrote:

While I understand the concern I can say that I have tied up with both of them in LR's. We easily traded 20 matches for about 15 minutes and our scores moved about 5 points in both cases. with an all maxed villains team i am pretty much able to keep up with max boosts and go toe-to-toe with both of them. I realized it was childish and sort of stupid but I was in a mood that night. They have more stamina than me but I am not sure they are cheating.

You weren't there when they were winning with some low level teams against my maxed teams. There's no possible combination of boosts and pure luck that would allow them (thereck & jacobpc) to win so fast. They are cheaters. 'Nuff said.

Nemek

I don't have very many doubts about their authenticity either. The way the can win so many games at lightning speed against multiple people at once just isn't possible.

Unknown

Nemek wrote:

I don't have very many doubts about their authenticity either. The way the can win so many games at lightning speed against multiple people at once just isn't possible.

Your statement are a little confusing and contradictory. You start by saying that you don't doubt their authenticity, meaning you believe them to be legit. Then you turn around and say that the speed they win at is impossible.

I could be wrong but it sounds like you are calling them out on cheating. Sorry for being a grammar national socialist but I feel with such issues it's best to be clear and as unambiguous as possible.

Nemek

Hah yeah...messed that up. I guess it's too early for me. I don't think they are legit.

Unknown

What bugs me most is the silence from devs/officials part.

It would be way too easy to drop in a note 'yes, we care, we did investigate the suspect observations, found all is in due order. We always look into strange patterns and do our best to keep the game clean'. To put concerns at rest.

But it is not happening. What maps to them silently assisting to growth in uncertainty and doubt.

If the involved people actually do no wrong they are hit by that too pretty much. Otherwise everyone else.

From past experience such silence is often the sign of major foul-up of the application's communication protocol that allows trivial attacks though repeated packets, bit-flipping, packet-dropout... And keeping silent as announcing would expose this, and lead to more hacking by people who thought it's shouldn't be that hard to implement a secure data stream these days.
Sure that's completely flawed logic.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

What bugs me most is the silence from devs/officials part.

It would be way too easy to drop in a note 'yes, we care, we did investigate the suspect observations, found all is in due order. We always look into strange patterns and do our best to keep the game clean'. To put concerns at rest.

But it is not happening. What maps to them silently assisting to growth in uncertainty and doubt.

If the involved people actually do no wrong they are hit by that too pretty much. Otherwise everyone else.

From past experience such silence is often the sign of major foul-up of the application's communication protocol that allows trivial attacks though repeated packets, bit-flipping, packet-dropout... And keeping silent as announcing would expose this, and lead to more hacking by people who thought it's shouldn't be that hard to implement a secure data stream these days.
Sure that's completely flawed logic.

This has already been said, in last weeks lightning round thread, and that it would be passed on to those who can look deeper into the issue.

Unknown

pasa_ wrote:

What bugs me most is the silence from devs/officials part.

It would be way too easy to drop in a note 'yes, we care, we did investigate the suspect observations, found all is in due order. We always look into strange patterns and do our best to keep the game clean'. To put concerns at rest.

But it is not happening. What maps to them silently assisting to growth in uncertainty and doubt.

If the involved people actually do no wrong they are hit by that too pretty much. Otherwise everyone else.

From past experience such silence is often the sign of major foul-up of the application's communication protocol that allows trivial attacks though repeated packets, bit-flipping, packet-dropout... And keeping silent as announcing would expose this, and lead to more hacking by people who thought it's shouldn't be that hard to implement a secure data stream these days.
Sure that's completely flawed logic.

Actually, you could also look at it the other way. They could be investigating the suspect accounts but, as of yet, not taking action. Why? Because that way they can analyze how the hacks were performed, and then take measures to close off those avenues completely. Of course, hackers will find another way to ply their trade - and again, the company will need to analyze how it was done, and fix it. The silence, instead of being the sign of a foul up, is in place so that those that are hacking don't say "oh, now they're looking - better stop for a while" before starting up again. Gotta look at both sides.

Or, well, tin foil hat time, those accounts could actually be D3 owned accounts, testing how certain advantages can be had...so that they can end them. But that's just crazy talk. Right?

Unknown

Agree with dearbluey.

In many games, you're taught NOT to call out cheaters if you suspect them, because if they are wise they will stop and possibly skate by. Instead, privately inform those in charge to look into it. Looking at it optimistically, Devs might be looking into it privately without drawing any extra attention to the matter.

Unknown

I'm guessing that there are cheats that are hard to detect.

For example hitting the same person over and over. The client probably does a query for the next opponent and the result is sent back but not recorded on the server. This isn't something you would want to waste storage on unless investigating problems with matchmaking. A cheater just has to override that query with the results of the previous one to get the same person over and over again.

For quick battles, those are done 100% on the client and the results and statistics are sent back at the end. As long as the results look legit, it may be hard to tell if they are real or generated by a hack. Depending on what battle info is sent, it may be hard to tell that the client is hacked.

Unknown

Howler wrote:

Purty Hawkeye wrote:

While I understand the concern I can say that I have tied up with both of them in LR's. We easily traded 20 matches for about 15 minutes and our scores moved about 5 points in both cases. with an all maxed villains team i am pretty much able to keep up with max boosts and go toe-to-toe with both of them. I realized it was childish and sort of stupid but I was in a mood that night. They have more stamina than me but I am not sure they are cheating.

You weren't there when they were winning with some low level teams against my maxed teams. There's no possible combination of boosts and pure luck that would allow them (thereck & jacobpc) to win so fast. They are cheaters. 'Nuff said.

You can use a full one-star team to beat a full 3-star team. I've had a tough time beating max level 3-star teams but no problems with average level of 100 on 3-star team. It's not quick though, but faster than one might think.

Spoit

Bugpop wrote:

Howler wrote:

Purty Hawkeye wrote:

While I understand the concern I can say that I have tied up with both of them in LR's. We easily traded 20 matches for about 15 minutes and our scores moved about 5 points in both cases. with an all maxed villains team i am pretty much able to keep up with max boosts and go toe-to-toe with both of them. I realized it was childish and sort of stupid but I was in a mood that night. They have more stamina than me but I am not sure they are cheating.

You weren't there when they were winning with some low level teams against my maxed teams. There's no possible combination of boosts and pure luck that would allow them (thereck & jacobpc) to win so fast. They are cheaters. 'Nuff said.

You can use a full one-star team to beat a full 3-star team. I've had a tough time beating max level 3-star teams but no problems with average level of 100 on 3-star team. It's not quick though, but faster than one might think.

~30 seconds fast though?

Unknown

Their names have already come up several times and it may be mysterious. I'm pretty good at finding good matches and cascades myself. I get miracle cascades as often as the AI. The AI also behaves in a certain way, and while I have somewhat of a feel for it, if they have an accurate model then I can see them being fairly swift. 2-star wolverine and Thor is essential to this. Thor and Wolverine may be under revision due to the strategy these players employ.

Clintman

ever have 6 matches go lightning fast? Can you find the same opponent by skipping fast enough to beat them 2x in the time it takes you to finish a fight? No one questions a fast win, or even 2 fast wins, but when it happens all the time it defies luck.

Unknown

Clint wrote:

ever have 6 matches go lightning fast? Can you find the same opponent by skipping fast enough to beat them 2x in the time it takes you to finish a fight? No one questions a fast win, or even 2 fast wins, but when it happens all the time it defies luck.

I realize you're frustrated. You can't know that's what's happening on their end. If they happen to be as fast as you say I'm certain their accounts are flagged and the devs are reviewing their behavior.

Unknown

gobstopper wrote:

Agree with dearbluey.

In many games, you're taught NOT to call out cheaters if you suspect them, because if they are wise they will stop and possibly skate by. Instead, privately inform those in charge to look into it. Looking at it optimistically, Devs might be looking into it privately without drawing any extra attention to the matter.

That makes only sense when attention was not yet drawn. For the material that went public other strategy fits better.

Come to mind an interesting thing: we have times when pve gets bugged. Recall some missions in hulk providing low-level troops, issuing hawkeye prizes. In hunt sometimes had extra hammer mission popping up after jump jets.

You play those, get points and prizes -- and the server is all too happy accepting them. From a bugged client. In a healthy system no matter what corruption is at the client the server would discover that the reported game is not fitting and stop it. The most elementary gating. And those cases don;t look like server-involved bugs, those would be seen uniformly by everyone. (certainly this is speculation).

The bottom line is, if the server is happy to accept a game won packet from a client at face value without checking and using server-issued GUIDs, it's possible to hack the client to issue more of those win packets.