Are there damage hacks?

If you wanna enjoy this game, avoid getting absorbed in sus accusations.

A major reason why I have had the opportunity to enjoy my solo play for as long as I have is because I don't get involved in accusations at all. Completely avoid them.

This is not only a much more peaceful way to play the game but it avoids making bad calls about others.

I struggle to even watch SoT player content these days because the accusations are so baseless and so common that it really takes all fun out of the experience, including the social spaces around SoT.

Don't get caught up in it and you'll have a much better chance at having fun in SoT.

The best investment you'll make in SoT is taking L's and W's without it becoming something negative about others. Sus accusations, unnecessary disrespect, out of control ego, etc. Stuff can just happen without becoming a negative or suspicious thing about other people.

@lem0n-curry said in Are there damage hacks?:

@kakaroto9766 said in Are there damage hacks?:

Just wondering if anyone has found this before. I just got killed full hp with a single blunderbus shot. I thought this was impossible since the nerf? to make it do 9 damage per each 10 pellets?

Guy boarded my ship. Missed his eye of reach shot. I am still full hp so I dive with my sword. He blunderbuses me and I am dead.
No fire, no nothing else. I had full hp, nothing did damage to me, guy hadnt reloaded his eye of reach from the shot he missed, and I just dropped dead when he blundied me.

I am honestly considering recording every game I play from now on to get evidence for this kinda thing. Usually by the time one even suspects cheating its already too late to try to record.

Other sus things he did:

• He was off his ship running around on fotd. I detonated a megakeg on his ship, was guarding ladders. He suddenly appears next to me. He had no reason or way to die in fotd, there was nothing and no one. We were on the low side and there was no way to jump directly in to the ship

Mermaid or blackscreen gets you back to your ship.

• Found 3 buried chests all over fotd real quick without maps (I got rid of them before he even attacked me). Yeah I know you can see the moved earth, but they were in 3 different places, 1 down and 2 up, all separate, and he found them quite quick. He missed 3 megakegs I just hid in some fairly obvious bushes. So I was wondering if some cheat might probably show you buried loot spots, but not things like kegs or loot standing out in the open.

Not everyone is interested in mega kegs, if he has no intention to sell them, why bother picking them up after he sees them? To know where they are in case you're coming back could be enough information for him.

1- I guess if he is good he could have blackscreened somewhere rather quick intentionally. But his ship was parked in fotd, merm was nowhere close and he appeared quite quick.

2- He however took a normal keg from the vault to try and blow up my ship during the fight. Why take the normal one if there was mega?

Any thoughts on 1 shot blundie? Main curiosity for this post is if there are such cheats, to know what to look for when reporting.

@lem0n-curry He was not alone, but his ship and mate were faaaar away, and this happened on the belly of my sloop. I only heard 1 shot, and I doubt he was even in range to EoR me if he even somehow had a second of sight of me. The other guy was also not too good at PVP. Its certainly POSSIBLE, but I am fairly certain I only heard one hit I am sure I died the moment he used his blunderbus. Its POSSIBLE the other guy shot me, but with all these factors in to consideration I do find it highly unlikely.

And there ARE cheats for this game. Its well known. I have even seen players literally flying/hovering around. Those super obvious ones tend to get banned faster, but of course there would be more quiet/careful ones.

I just dont know if there are DAMAGE cheats, or cheats that increase the amount of pellets of the blunderbus or other stuff.

@callmebackdraft I mean I assumed damage might be handled server side. But if the shot pellets are handled client side, whats to tell the blunderbus not to shoot more than 10 pellets?
For all the server knows, maybe 2 pirates shot you and thats why you were hit by 11 pellets. Each one did 9 damage.

@kakaroto9766 said in Are there damage hacks?:

I mean I assumed damage might be handled server side. But if the shot pellets are handled client side, whats to tell the blunderbus not to shoot more than 10 pellets?
For all the server knows, maybe 2 pirates shot you and thats why you were hit by 11 pellets. Each one did 9 damage.

This will always be your experience in online gaming if you let it become the main focus of encounters.

If you look around the community you will see people that are always caught up in what they consider to be toxic encounters, "sus" fights, and/or bugs/performance issues.

Then you get to the point where you will be angry at people or the game before you even log in.

Doesn't need to be that way. It never needs to be that way.

It's an adventure game, not a pve game, not a pvp game, an adventure sandbox.

There becomes a point where people start robbing themselves of fun by choosing to approach it in ways that make it less fun. Giving so much time and energy to incompatible random encounters in adventure is giving up what adventure is all about. Adventure exists to escape the accusatory interactions, the energy vampirism of conflict with others.

A sus accusation in a gaming environment is inherently a bad call. It's a guess with a lot on the line and a lot of possible explanations. You will never improve your adventure or gaming experience by making them regularly.

A sus accusation is just a cheating accusation where the accuser tries to avoid accountability for their accusation. That will always backfire eventually.

@wolfmanbush "You should never accuse or report potential cheaters" is a recipe for a game filled to the brim with cheaters

The ONLY reason rare FINALLY added easy anticheat to SoT was because of 1- The rampant increase in cheaters with hourglass, and 2- The reports, bad rep, and forum posts talking about it.

They wouldnt have done anything (as they did for years) if people didnt keep pointing the issue out. And they will do nothing to make it better if people just ignore the issue.

@kakaroto9766 said in Are there damage hacks?:

@wolfmanbush "You should never accuse or report potential cheaters" is a recipe for a game filled to the brim with cheaters

The ONLY reason rare FINALLY added easy anticheat to SoT was because of 1- The rampant increase in cheaters with hourglass, and 2- The reports, bad rep, and forum posts talking about it.

They wouldnt have done anything (as they did for years) if people didnt keep pointing the issue out. And they will do nothing to make it better if people just ignore the issue.

What people don't bring up when talking about this are the countless baseless accusations that face no accountability. Causing negativity towards others based on nothing other than a guess at best and malice at worst.

Or the countless awesome adventurers that have left this game because of the non-stop focus on negativity, unfortunate outcome, and drama. Far more people are disheartened by that sort of environment than are directly impacted by cheating in adventure.

A culture in SoT has been created that runs out people that want to have fun and emboldens those that want to constantly act like SoT is somehow so much worse than other live service games. They all struggle in different ways but not all of the communities are so consistently discouraging and unpleasant as SoT.

The game has no shortage of people that want to talk about the cheating or the toxicity or the "sus" gameplay.

It has a shortage of people in public space that can chill out and talk about something other than cheating, toxicity, and/or game performance. That's where a real difference can be made in SoT, where the experience can see significant improvement.

@wolfmanbush There would be no need for "Baseless" accusations if Rare didnt put all the onus on their players to solve the issue. Even today they do nothing unless you provide them with recorded irrefutable evidence of the issue, which tends to take a lot of work and be very hard to get.

Rare LITERALLY asks us to accuse people for their system to work.

Your solution? "Let cheaters run rampant, because potential accusations of cheating somehow do more damage to the game's community than cheating itself". No. it does not.

My suggestion would be 3fold:

• Rare be honest and transparent about cheating. If people know the situation, there will be less speculation, and it will FEEL like they are doing something about it even if they do not.
• Implement deeper level anticheat than easyanticheat.
• Implement a better reporting system. Its sad it took rare YEARS to implement an ingame report functionality, where as games years older than SOT already had them. A good example of what rare could do is already working and functional in many games even bigger than SoT. A single report usually does nothing and is ignored by the system (although archived). Once reports of a player cross a certain threshold, it can be brought to the attention of some moderator's review, where they can look in to it, and perhaps even witness or try and trigger the potential cheater to expose themselves. Then, be transparent with the result as well. "A player you reported has been banned". You can also very easily make a "report reputation" hidden score, where players who often fake report have their reports count for less, than players who report actual cheaters. Basically if you fake report no one listens to your report, and if you are careful with your reports your reports will be given higher score (more likely for someone to review it in person). There's lots of non-invasive ways you can involve the community in such a system without having to pay much for employees.

Now you might say "That would be BAD for the feeling of the game"And I would say. 1 less cheater is better for the game than any vague community feeling.

Pretending the problem doesnt exist and singing kumba yah is not a good plan for anything.

@kakaroto9766 said in Are there damage hacks?:

Pretending the problem doesnt exist and singing kumba yah is not a good plan for anything.

A game where experienced players struggle to have a short random interactions with others without accusing them of wrong doing is a problem, and one that I do not ignore.

Your thread is a sus accusation and is part of a big picture issue in SoT. It will not turn into a solution, it will just get lumped in with a sea of accusations.

They don't work harder if morale is lowered, they don't work more effectively or efficiently if morale is lowered. They have a job that will always be a struggle as long as the game exists and as long as live service gaming exists as a whole.

The objective of someone that is cheating is to either worsen the experience of others and/or to self-serve with no regard for the experiences of others.

My solution is not to ignore it, it's to not allow them to have that control over the individual or the environment. That is only accomplished by working around the obstacles and making the best out of the sessions. By not giving them any extra time or energy.

I'm not your enemy in this, devs aren't your enemy in this, people you disagree with aren't your enemy in this. "If I'm not always talking about it then I am ignoring it and I am not doing enough" is the mindset that is your enemy in all of this. It's something we all face on countless issues in life.

It feeds into counterproductive action and belief. It causes unnecessary conflict with others. It lets the ego get out of control.

I'm not ignoring it and I'm not suggesting that you ignore it either. I just don't think that any of us should let that mindset win.

My solution is not to ignore it, it's to not allow them to have that control over the individual or the environment. That is only accomplished by working around the obstacles and making the best out of the sessions. By not giving them any extra time or energy.

Thats literally saying you want to ignore them. "Not giving them extra time or energy"

You think fake reports are worse for the game than cheaters. And I simply disagree with that. A vague community feeling does not have a worse effect than players who actually directly actively and negatively affect player's experience by cheating.