Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat

  • shadyriddler
    Rogue
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @shadyriddler said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @wolfmanbush What would you accept as proven fact?

    What I would accept as strong evidence of mass cheating is:

    mass bans (this is what I would accept as proof)

    (evidence) widespread streamed encounters of cheating, not streamers calling non-suspicious things suspicious, not frustration accusations, clear cheating across different regions and with different encounters, something that currently doesn't exist in any sort of ( a lot of people are doing this) kind of way

    (evidence) personal encounters with consistent and clear cheating, I've played this game more than most in a fairly unique way that is heavy on encounters and combat against pvpers specifically and have consistently done so for years, 100% organic play style as a risk taker, if it existed widespread, I would see it.

    People make claims about widespread esp as well, from my experience I doubt it. Between the mass hopping for marked boats and the hundreds if not thousands of times I've seen pvpers make wrong calls in game about who to chase and where to look, I doubt it.

    The difference in experience between high risk activity and profitable/safer treasure gathering is night and day, it wouldn't be that way with widespread esp, there wouldn't be a safer way to move quality treasure around and there just is, and has been for a long time. People hop for marked targets and miss out on people being sneaky all the time, not a sign of mass esp use, indicates pvpers probably aren't mass using it.

    Because it always gets lost in these threads I'll once again make it clear, saying there isn't evidence or signs of mass cheating is not the same as saying there isn't cheating, everyone acknowledges that cheating exists.

    If that's all you need then you tube is your friend for that, there are masses of evidence of clear undefendable cheating.
    It is not possible to confirm or deny mass banning as rare or microsoft are very unlikely to disclose that information.

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @pumpa-cat said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @wolfmanbush

    I have to agree with your points there.

    Yes, cheating does occur, but some seem to provide “evidence” such as, well, a well-known YouTube streamer said the player he was fighting was cheating, therefore it must be true. That’s mere hearsay.

    I have seen one video where a player had all sorts of symbols popping up on his screen, including one that appeared to show him where to aim his cannons in order for the ball to hit his target. (Though he still didn’t manage to hit his target 🤣). That is what I call evidence, not so-and-so said it was cheating.

    Is that the cannon prediction that was brought up earlier in the thread? It sure sounds like it.

    @WolfManbush you aren't going to get straight confirmation of evidence. None of us players will. It will forever be hearsay and speculation on the side of the player.

    The only persons that would have that evidence are Rare. The last thing I imagine they would do is confirm their game has a cheater problem. That makes their game look bad and scares away potential players.

    The game can very much still have a cheater problem and us be none the wiser, especially in non-regulated areas of high competition.

    But what isn't really up for debate is that putting in something like EAC would corral what cheating is happening, real quick.

    I have even run across cheaters these days.

    I think it is definitely on the rise and if Rare does not take steps to stop it, it will become a problem eventually.

  • BBoaBrim
    Rogue

    @personalc0ffee

    I’m not sure if it’s that one. I was watching a streamer and he happened to mention a video where a player was using a cannon aim cheat, but he still couldn’t hit his target. He linked to it so I watched it.

  • PiT0NN
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @pumpa-cat Yea thats prediction I was talking about. Also tje guy who was selling that had 1000 members on discord. Sad.

    @PersonalC0ffee Yea, putting EAC would put everyones mind at ease 100%

  • EldritchBear
    Ship Mate
    Insider

    @personalc0ffee said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    The last thing I imagine they would do is confirm their game has a cheater problem. That makes their game look bad and scares away potential players.

    True, that's generally how it goes with these things. Companies would prefer to solve the problem quickly and discretely, which makes sense from a PR point of view.

    ... On the other hand, the GH and OOS emissary leaderboards from last month are still peppered with usernames that are actual URLs to cheat sites. If discrete action is what Rare is aiming for, it seems beyond bizarre that they can't even be bothered to prevent people who sell cheats from using the official homepage as a billboard. When I eventually got a response 2 weeks ago (weeks after the report was made), it was that the issue had been referred to the 'security team,' who apparently just can't be bothered. Maybe their plan is to stick their heads in the sand and wait for it to go away when next month rolls around, I dunno.

    Acknowledging that cheating is going on may in some regards make the game look bad, but when the playerbase is already aware, it doesn't look anywhere near as bad as being quiet and appearing to not give a hoot.

  • Dr Orchamedes
    Master

    @burnbacon said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    The amount of cheating in the game is making the game kinda unplayable.

    Where. When? Proof.

    Some people confuse. Good skill with cheats and it’s funny. Or poor server

    A lot of folks have been posting clips on Twitter and there are a lot of videos on Youtube. Personally, I think I have only encountered one chater, as the match started, as our boats were pretty far apart, they Insta boarded us. Then Flipped our boat to the heavens by grabbing the ladder. So just one in not sure how many play sessions. Does not seem too high. But when it does happen it's really bad.

    @WolfManbush I think a simple solution (and Hilarious), IF/WHEN Rare can detect cheating software or hacks, do NOT ban them, just put them in lobbies with other cheaters. Let them slap fight it out! Problem fixes itself

  • R3troRaccoon
    Marauder
    Insider

    @piton2720 said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    The amount of cheating in the game is making the game kinda unplayable. Now I can say this since I've been playing the game for 3years and I have over 1k+ hours only figthing PvP (TDM) in old arena, and god knows how many hours I have spent figthing ships overall.

    My question is, since SOT has a huge problem with this (I say this because it's becoming more and more obvious) why don't they put external Anti-Cheat in their game ? I mean they are a "big company" they should be able to partner with Easy Anti-Cheat or some other external ACs, but rn the best option would be EAC since it is the hardest to bypass, being the programmer myself.

    I don't see a problem with adding EAC to your game. Sure they might want something in return for partnership but isn't it worth it ? I see a lot of people who aren't exceptionally good in PvP quit the game. Me personally I don't have a problem with fighting a cheater, sometimes it might be a good experience and that's how you get better but that's only if you are exceptionally good in PvP, otherwise people don't stand a chance.

    Also who knows how many people are actually cheating but hiding it ... (Cannon aim assistance, ESPs ..... etc, you know where i go with this).

    There is just a lot of new cheats coming and I don't think its possible for SOT developers to focus on anti-cheat and game itself because it is too much work.

    So my question here is why not use EAC ? (If I have misinformation about it, and Rare actually trying to get with them but failed, then it's my mistake lol)

    They may be aware of a much larger problem, as in way more players are casually cheating then speculated, and providing a "Fix" i.e Anticheat would ban way more players then they want to lose. Its also a major reason Arena died. Most players were PC, specifically Steam, where its easiest to get away with it. You get a base of really good players and cheaters mixed together, and it completely shuts off anyone thats not a 2% Top Tier Player. Why do you think they never really updated it or enhanced it when they were fully capable? I believe they were hoping to discard most of the cheater crowd by letting Arena die, killing off the NPCs, and focusing on PvE for a while. The only reason not to impliment an anticheat system is if that system would lower or damage a signifigant percentage of the player base and or streaming base. So much advertising is done thru Twitch and Twitter, why would they not stop cheating, unless it would somehow harm or potentially harm their SoT Streamer Ad Revenue. Seeing big Streamer names getting booted publicly, saying during a Sea of Champions event, after SoT endorses them and host them and partners them is..... Problematic. Why else would you not want to have a fair and cheat free game for your people to play? especially as easy as it would be for them do to so. Even simple, non competitive phone app games have anticheat.......makes you question why. now with Season 8 being an all PvP update, which is awesome, its has brought back to the forefront a once again growing problem of uncontested and undeniable cheating. Youtube alone is full of videos that just walk you through it step by step, showing you every ESP, aimbot, lootbot, fast travel, infinite health, auto ship repair etc etc. And the response players have been getting since 2018 is.......

  • Crypthu
    Castaway

    There will never be an AntiCheat that cannot be avoided, these are scripts and essentially you will never detect them. EAC is a bunch of ... :D useless.

  • Reverend Toast
    Lord
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush I have encountered at least 5 players in the past 2 weeks who have had the Legendary Sea Dog weapons... but also only had the game for 3 days.

  • Reverend Toast
    Lord
    Insider

    @pumpa-cat We had a member who used to be in our Discord Group. Often times when we have a fun Galleon Group going one member or another will share their screen so others can watch the antics we get into.

    This particular person (Who came into our discord with a couple buddies) shared his screen instead of the app... and lo and behold: His screen was FULL of tracking boxes, and highlights from the ESP program he had running.

    One of his buddies later just shared a video of him doing a 360 spin Sniper Shot killing a guy underwater without a visible name... now was he confirmed cheating? No... but due to his association with the one who was using the ESP program, we are assuming he was as well.

  • FaceYourDemon
    Vanguard
    Insider
    Founder

    Baffles me how some brain dead players still prefer to call it a tiny issue.
    Literally blind

  • Scheneighnay
    Seafarer

    @faceyourdemon said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    Baffles me how some brain dead players still prefer to call it a tiny issue.
    Literally blind

    More likely they're participating in the cheating.
    In other games I've seen streamers who are active forum members keep saying there's no cheating before slipping up and being caught with a cheat overlay on stream.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @scheneighnay said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    More likely they're participating in the cheating.
    In other games I've seen streamers who are active forum members keep saying there's no cheating before slipping up and being caught with a cheat overlay on stream.

    might be some heavy exploit/macro use in pockets of streamer activity, a lot of them really want to be partners and to go that route, in their world that's quite a carrot to chase and a reason to stay on track

    not everyone makes the decisions that makes sense for them but most of them are probably avoiding downloaded cheats.

    most of the ones I've watched don't seem like they are doing anything wrong on the topic of cheating imo

  • Scheneighnay
    Seafarer

    @wolfmanbush said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @scheneighnay said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    More likely they're participating in the cheating.
    In other games I've seen streamers who are active forum members keep saying there's no cheating before slipping up and being caught with a cheat overlay on stream.

    might be some heavy exploit/macro use in pockets of streamer activity, a lot of them really want to be partners and to go that route, in their world that's quite a carrot to chase and a reason to stay on track

    not everyone makes the decisions that makes sense for them but most of them are probably avoiding downloaded cheats.

    most of the ones I've watched don't seem like they are doing anything wrong on the topic of cheating imo

    Just saying I've seen it happen on multiple occasions elsewhere.

    Usually FPS games where they get accused of cheating, try to gaslight everyone who says cheating is real, then get caught running ESP on stream or tracking people through walls on server replays.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @scheneighnay said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    Just saying I've seen it happen on multiple occasions elsewhere.

    Usually FPS games where they get accused of cheating, try to gaslight everyone who says cheating is real, then get caught running ESP on stream or tracking people through walls on server replays.

    this game is pretty unique in participants because the environment is unique, it's a time consuming adventure game with all kinds of different things going on which attracts all sort of different players and different content creators

    it's not just 15+ minute matches of fps or a BR scenario.

    There are some cliques of extreme pvp play but a lot of the play and players are either just finding some random scenarios to get into (and their pvp doesn't show anything unusual) or they just heavily coordinate with other skilled players and they rely on crew power for combat.

    When examining how they perform as an individual it's similar to the rest of us, working on things, improving consistently over time till hitting their ceiling.

    I think that this game has a player base that have priorities all over the place, many of which are outside of super duper high performance pvp. Many of them do pvp because that's what gets the clicks and maybe that's the level of action they prefer, but a lot of their play just isn't suspicious imo as far as downloaded cheats go.

    A lot of human error there in performance, which isn't to diss their skill it just suggests they are playing legit. Random inconsistency even if a small amount is a pretty decent indicator of playing off skill, not cheats, especially in the chaos of combat where a sink is on the line.

  • Unleet1
    Commander
    Insider

    caught my first cheaters in around 4 months last night. Interestingly, the same cheating crew (the first one) that got mixelplx 3 days ago. I reported them but it's pretty useless since everyone has unlimited accounts and access to the game. it's also a bit weird they are still playing, as though they weren't reported or worse were not banned...but I laugh at the cheating more than get upset. At the core, they were not very good players.

  • shadyriddler
    Rogue
    Insider

    @pumpa-cat I looked at one of these cheat sites and it appears that aimbot hit ratios can be fine tuned to be less obvious so it doesnt always hit. That's a big problem and is making it difficult for people unaware to detect aimbot use. However it becomes a bit easier for a near daily day one player to detect cheating factoring in for luck etc. Example lately has been the moment you get the upperhand in a big way, the player that couldn't hit an elephants backside with a tennis racket sundenly becomes a god mode player.

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @shadyriddler said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @pumpa-cat I looked at one of these cheat sites and it appears that aimbot hit ratios can be fine tuned to be less obvious so it doesnt always hit. That's a big problem and is making it difficult for people unaware to detect aimbot use. However it becomes a bit easier for a near daily day one player to detect cheating factoring in for luck etc. Example lately has been the moment you get the upperhand in a big way, the player that couldn't hit an elephants backside with a tennis racket sundenly becomes a god mode player.

    That is problematic, yes.

  • shadyriddler
    Rogue
    Insider

    Rust has admins who can be invisible so they can investigate cheat accusations and ban accordingly (the you tube vids are funny). Maybe Rare should have some or maybe they do?

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @shadyriddler said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    Rust has admins who can be invisible so they can investigate cheat accusations and ban accordingly (the you tube vids are funny). Maybe Rare should have some or maybe they do?

    This community has some of the most baseless "sus" accusations I've ever seen, throw on known server issues that are going to lead to many accusations, and I don't know how any company could truly have the resources to make that even close to realistic.

    It's not like anyone just knows which reports to focus on, they have to do what is already done, look into it with the resources available.

    Resources aren't unlimited to check out everyone's "these pirate's are shooting too well" accusations in game as they come in.

    Reports would dramatically increase if people though that had a personal crew mod to jump in and check things out.

  • shadyriddler
    Rogue
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush well RUST does. Some will be baseless and some will be true but as it's not possible for anyone on these forums to post their proof you cannot presume they they are wrong. So to say 'This community has some of the most baseless "sus" accusations I've ever seen,' is your own point of view as they cannot prove it here. The fact that so many players now on all sorts of community boards are posting about their cheater encounters (as best they can given the forum rules) does hold more weight than your own pov.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @shadyriddler said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @wolfmanbush well RUST does. Some will be baseless and some will be true but as it's not possible for anyone on these forums to post their proof you cannot presume they they are wrong. So to say 'This community has some of the most baseless "sus" accusations I've ever seen,' is your own point of view as they cannot prove it here. The fact that so many players now on all sorts of community boards are posting about their cheater encounters (as best they can given the forum rules) does hold more weight than your own pov.

    A significant amount of the baseless accusations are on stream and in vods, where anyone can clearly see the evidence they are basing their opinion on, far more common to find than obvious cheating.

    Much of this louder noise about cheating (outside of the content leading to significantly more encounters which does create more cheating accusations) is coming right out of the streaming community where people are taking obvious cheating random clips and using to justify sus accusations, there is very little accountability with accusing people of things in the social side of the community.

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @wolfmanbush Wolf, it is estimated by my crew alone that 1 in 20 ships in the hour glass mode is doing some kind of cheating or very suspicious behavior.

    More and more and more accusations, threads, and discussions are cropping up daily.

    There's a cheater problem.

    Just like there is with GTAO and RDO.

  • shadyriddler
    Rogue
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush you cannot simply assume they are baseless sus accusations, your just showing your own bias opinion which again I will point out to you is outweighed by the amount of claims. They cannot prove it here in this community forum therfore you cannot simply assume they are untrue claims.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @personalc0ffee said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @wolfmanbush Wolf, it is estimated by my crew alone that 1 in 20 ships in the hour glass mode is doing some kind of cheating or very suspicious behavior.

    More and more and more accusations, threads, and discussions are cropping up daily.

    There's a cheater problem.

    Just like there is with GTAO and RDO.

    Ok? you can have that view but that's not anything to work with for mass cheating accusations

    The content isn't even popular outside of a few specific groups, there literally isn't even enough activity to suggest widespread cheating. At most people can make the claim that on demand has a bunch of cheating within a pocket of activity.

    They don't have 3-5 people fighting each other over and over and over for months because it's popular content or because of stamps specifically, it's because of low interest and low activity

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    We, as a community can not just keep going around and saying the accusations are baseless.

    If they keep piling up, there's eventually a tipping point.

    The game most likely has a cheater problem currently, as much as it might pain to hear that. All online games have cheaters and all online games go through this. It is normal.

    I'm sure Rare is working hard in the background on the problem and solutions.

    In the meanwhile;

    I'm seeing tons of discussion everywhere in the communities about cheating, rise in cheating, extremely suspicious behaviors, etc and not just from my crew. Completely off the wall users are regularly discussing cheating. It is not just content creators cherry picking encounters, though I see that as well.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @personalc0ffee said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    We, as a community can not just keep going around and saying the accusations are baseless.

    If they keep piling up, there's eventually a tipping point.

    The game most likely has a cheater problem currently, as much as it might pain to hear that. All online games have cheaters and all online games go through this. It is normal.

    I'm sure Rare is working hard in the background on the problem and solutions.

    In the meanwhile;

    I'm seeing tons of discussion everywhere in the communities about cheating, rise in cheating, extremely suspicious behaviors, etc and not just from my crew. Completely off the wall users are regularly discussing cheating. It is not just content creators cherry picking encounters, though I see that as well.

    and because of low accountability within these accusations they will continue

    they will continue if there is an anti-cheat

    no matter what Rare does they will be accused of incompetence with cheating and skilled opponents will be accused of cheating, especially during on demand pvp.

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @wolfmanbush said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @personalc0ffee said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    We, as a community can not just keep going around and saying the accusations are baseless.

    If they keep piling up, there's eventually a tipping point.

    The game most likely has a cheater problem currently, as much as it might pain to hear that. All online games have cheaters and all online games go through this. It is normal.

    I'm sure Rare is working hard in the background on the problem and solutions.

    In the meanwhile;

    I'm seeing tons of discussion everywhere in the communities about cheating, rise in cheating, extremely suspicious behaviors, etc and not just from my crew. Completely off the wall users are regularly discussing cheating. It is not just content creators cherry picking encounters, though I see that as well.

    and because of low accountability within these accusations they will continue

    they will continue if there is an anti-cheat

    no matter what Rare does they will be accused of incompetence with cheating and skilled opponents will be accused of cheating, especially during on demand pvp.

    That doesn't mean to do nothing.

    Something has to be done.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @personalc0ffee said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    That doesn't mean to do nothing.

    They don't "do nothing" they just aren't loud about what they do.

    Their main issue is that interest in content gets so low during the seasons that it condenses the cheating encounters, season 8 even more so by its design.

  • shadyriddler
    Rogue
    Insider

    @wolfmanbush Whatever it is they are doing doesn't appear to be working or appear to be enough so maybe they should adopt a new approach to the problem. They don't have to be specific about it but some kind of reassurance would go a long way to the people who line their pockets. Their statement regarding cheating from a few years ago is contradictory and clearly outdated, to say cheating on xbox isn't possible and then futher down the statement to say it is possible but just hard to do , is both contradictory and false.

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @wolfmanbush said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @personalc0ffee said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    That doesn't mean to do nothing.

    They don't "do nothing" they just aren't loud about what they do.

    Their main issue is that interest in content gets so low during the seasons that it condenses the cheating encounters, season 8 even more so by its design.

    I agree with users saying that we need EAC client side on top of SoT.

    It would help a lot. It won't stop them all, no but it will handle the rising problem.

    I do not think the MS Azure server side anti cheat is good enough any longer. It is slow to learn, adapt, and react.

    The heavy PvP modes are going to attract the most cheaters. I haven't really run into any outside the HG mode since its introduction but I'm sure they are there. Prior to the HG, I would run into some but it was not common.

  • WolfManbush
    Legend

    @shadyriddler said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @wolfmanbush you cannot simply assume they are baseless sus accusations, your just showing your own bias opinion which again I will point out to you is outweighed by the amount of claims. They cannot prove it here in this community forum therfore you cannot simply assume they are untrue claims.

    Sure I can for some, I've been accused of cheating and of being sus on these very forums for having an opinion in these threads, by different people. So I know that some are baseless and factually incorrect.

    I've watched time and time again people call others sus based on literally nothing suspicious happening. Sus accusations where the "sus" part isn't even possible with a cheat.

    My claim was that this community has some of the most baseless accusations I've ever seen, which is an accurate observation/anecdote.

    When the community wants to roll with "trust me bro" about mass cheating accusations credibility is relevant. Accountability is necessary for accuracy.

    People that are responsible about handling what they think is suspicious without proof of wrong doing don't spread that out in the community, they go about the report process and let it get checked out for accuracy. Or even better, don't assume the worst about people and give them the benefit of the doubt that a random competitor in a random encounter is owed especially with as many issues as this game has that have nothing to do with anyone cheating.

    Baseless is lacking a foundation in fact which is literally what a majority of sus accusations are in SoT.

  • PersonalC0ffee
    Captain
    Insider
    Boatswain

    @wolfmanbush said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @shadyriddler said in Regarding SOT Anti-Cheat:

    @wolfmanbush you cannot simply assume they are baseless sus accusations, your just showing your own bias opinion which again I will point out to you is outweighed by the amount of claims. They cannot prove it here in this community forum therfore you cannot simply assume they are untrue claims.

    Sure I can for some, I've been accused of cheating and of being sus on these very forums for having an opinion in these threads, by different people. So I know that some are baseless and factually incorrect.

    Ah, but that's not the game though and also all disputes are supposed to be settled on the waves. If you got someone bullying you in DM, you need to report that.

    I've watched time and time again people call others sus based on literally nothing suspicious happening. Sus accusations where the "sus" part isn't even possible with a cheat.

    My claim was that this community has some of the most baseless accusations I've ever seen, which is an accurate observation/anecdote.

    All online games have hackusations. SoT is no different. That doesn't mean there is not a rise in cheating happening or that what cheating was there before, is now more visible to the average player.

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