Without Naming Names....

Unknown

Iron Batman wrote:

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.

Of course the server side should keep the state of content of the 3 buttons with opponents. It needs no permanent storage, just part of the session state. Then when you start the game it should be checked to match -- also the end report. That way the client can hack himself to show whatever opponent, might even play the game, but it would never booked as a legit result.

As I mentioned earlier, the whole game state history can be recorded in <1k bytes. 64*3 bit starting state, 1 byte per move, 3 bits per every new tile entering the board. There's just no rational reason not to include it all. Even if you add timestamp for every step it's still barely noticable. And this data is of extremely good value for so many purposes at devs side, not just to look after hacking attempts.

Certainly it is possible to generate game reports and inject them but they must appear random enough, fit usual distributions of patterns, fit timing a human can do, etc, someone capable to do it I'd probably hire right away for the dev team.

Spencer75

Howler wrote:

Jacobpc, thereck are two who I'll name. I've been in retaliation wars with them and they undoubtedly cheat. F*uck 'em.

Absolutely, Jacobpc's explanation was ridiculous...some garbage about being efficient and using a pc instead of a phone...I've used steam, it's a little quicker, not 3 times quicker

Unknown

I'm on PC + while I was attacking someone with 5-10 levels lower characters, they managed to beat me 3 times. Two times I could understand since they could have just beaten me as I was starting then had a lucky cascade to beat me again, but 3 times was highly suspicious as I doubt you could get through the UI delays fast enough even with high level characters.

Just to add that is the only time I've experienced anything like this in the game in 37 days of playing, so I don't think it's widespread. I don't know why anyone would try to cheat with persistent stuff on server that can be tracked + the risk of being banned and losing all their progress.

Unknown

Spencer75 wrote:

Howler wrote:

Jacobpc, thereck are two who I'll name. I've been in retaliation wars with them and they undoubtedly cheat. F*uck 'em.

Absolutely, Jacobpc's explanation was ridiculous...some garbage about being efficient and using a pc instead of a phone...I've used steam, it's a little quicker, not 3 times quicker

Maybe when he says PC, he means it's easier to hack the PC version.

Starfury

pasa_ wrote:

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.

Indeed, it's laughable how much information in this "competetive" mp game is kept client-side.

Unknown

I dunno about this business of beating 3stars with with 1 stars, it seems kinda stupid for anyone to do that because of retaliation. I generally did try to tank/retreat/shield to get out of mmr clusterland. I've also seen 3 attacks in a match that took me a little under a minute, which you'd think it'd be impossible to do just because ui/skipping/having to do a match. But I knew that we were trading matches, and I knew they suddenly hadn't attacked in 5 minutes, and started to get this dread in the pit of my stomach.

the fact that most of these people aren't rocking 141/230 teams even though they can supposedly magically win a match in 1second kinda tells you there's something going on with the server.

pve? people aren't timed 4 clearing their matches, period. they are one and two clearing and making the final rubber band push way too early (should be inside 1hr)

all this is kinda fixed because:
the secret sauce of shielded tank teams trying to flee mmr rankings, and no one attacking you is gone. shields are hidden. Because shields are hidden, anyone who unshields dies a horrible death of -100s every few minutes.
pve, you have to face all 230s vs people who just come in a bracket and have a fresh easy to clear plate. you just can't win every bracket like this.

Unknown

More people joining the club it seems. My three ***100+ team got bashed yesterday repeatedly by one person ( not the known ones ) with stock punisher and two * level 20.

There is no way you can chip down 16k health with such a team 3 times in 5 mins. And don't come with miracle cascade and boosts explanations. When your highest attack does 50 dmg you can't win in 1 min even with unlimited AP.

Unknown

Same thing has happened to me and I've posted details in another thread entitled 'how do you win faster than lightning' or something of the sort. I don't have a team of maxed 3* but was running something quite decent and lost repeatedly and quickly to a team consisting of a default villain (LR) and two unboosted heroes whose levels added up to less than either one of my two boosted villains. The explanation given was some kind of server lag causing the 'real' team to not sure. Does that happen?

Unknown

I suppose this might be some quirk of whatever changes they did to keep tank teams from being shown or I guess it could be a month old retaliation against my 1* team, but the other day I took a 50 point hit in SHIELD Training. My most recent team would have been 85wolv/85obw/either 77ares or 53thor and his team was 15im40/3jug/3mbw. The guy hasn't climbed any more since so I don't know what to make of it, but it just seemed weird and impossible to me for that team to have beaten mine. Hell, even if it is a month old retaliation he'd have to have boosted and play like a champion to have beaten my 1* lineup with his team.

Unknown

Nightboat, current defending teams are not required to be the actual teams that attacked you.

Example: I can attack you with 85/85/85 multiple times then switch to a 6/6/6 team to tank my mmr. When you come in to retaliate 3 hrs later you will see the 6/6/6 team.

Clintman

I do remember IceIX stating that you can see that people have been removed from the game/banned when you see totals like 2002 (like I see now with Thick as Thieves) that the 2 that you are people that have been removed and it filled in 2 people behind them.

Maybe we have seen the last of our alleged cheaters.

Unknown

Clint wrote:

I do remember IceIX stating that you can see that people have been removed from the game/banned when you see totals like 2002 (like I see now with Thick as Thieves) that the 2 that you are people that have been removed and it filled in 2 people behind them.

Maybe we have seen the last of our alleged cheaters.

That depends. My theory is that they are removed from tournament rankings but are still part of the PVP pool. So only half the battle is won (they can't beat you in a tourney but they can still steal points). It hasn't been confirmed yet, but that seems to be the case because the devs have indicated that the banned person doesn't necessarily know they are banned.

Unknown

jozier wrote:

Clint wrote:

I do remember IceIX stating that you can see that people have been removed from the game/banned when you see totals like 2002 (like I see now with Thick as Thieves) that the 2 that you are people that have been removed and it filled in 2 people behind them.

Maybe we have seen the last of our alleged cheaters.

That depends. My theory is that they are removed from tournament rankings but are still part of the PVP pool. So only half the battle is won (they can't beat you in a tourney but they can still steal points). It hasn't been confirmed yet, but that seems to be the case because the devs have indicated that the banned person doesn't necessarily know they are banned.

Decent way to keep siphoning $ from a cheating whale, I suppose

Unknown

I don't want to raise any accusations bcos in past few players thought that I was a cheater.
The best way to deny it is to present super fast tactic to kill enemies but probably this won't happened (maybe this : viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2574 ? )
Spending 600$ don't guarantee you fast kills.
Simple response from devs could resolve all doubts

Spencer75

And guess who currently tops the elite avengers leaderboard?

Jacobpc